9781422281147

12 M USLIMS IN A MERICA

of life that allows them to wear their Islamic and American iden- tities at the same time.

How Americans See Islam For centuries, Western scholars have portrayed Islam and Muslims as mysterious, barbaric, inferior, and sometimes even evil. Attitudes such as these made it easier for Europeans to take over Muslim lands during the colonial period—and to justify colonialism as a means of bringing enlightenment and civilization to Muslims. European colonialism colored the relationship of Islam and the West, forever placing them at odds in the minds of Muslims and westerners alike. As more Europeans settled in the United States, these Orientalist ideas came with them and became a part of the American worldview. Muhammad Alexander Russell Webb, who embraced Islam during his time as the U.S. consul in the Philippines, was the first known Anglo-American to convert to Islam. He spoke about the Western perception of Islam in 1893 at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. I am an American of the Americans. I carried with me for years the same errors that thousands of Americans carry with them today. Those errors have grown into history, false history has influenced your opinion of Islam. It influ- enced my opinion of Islam and when I began, ten years ago, to study the Oriental religions, I threw Islam aside as altogether too corrupt for consid- eration. But when I came beneath the surface, to know what Islam really is, to know who and what the prophet of Arabia was, I changed my belief very materially, and am proud to say that I am now a Mussulman [Muslim]. Upon seeing Muslims praying at the same event, a newspaper columnist wrote, “A lot a fellers was blacker than a pair o’ shoes on Sunday morning. . . . You can’t tell whether they’re at prayer or a dog fight, but I suppose it’s all the same in Arabia.” His understanding that the followers of Islam were a non-white, Arabian community was common among Americans at the time and still exists today.