by JOSEPH HAMMOND
Research into early Muslim communities in America has long attracted writers interested in how Muslims developed a sense of identity on this continent.
In the 1990s, Abdullah Hakim Quick, a Canadian writer, penned “Deeper Roots: Muslims in the Americas and the Caribbean Before Columbus,” which became a staple of many Islamic bookstores.
A new book, “Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas,” by Omar Mouallem, may meet the needs of a new generation of Muslims. Like Quick, Mouallem is Canadian, but his approach is entirely different. “Praying to the West” is part travelogue, part investigatory journalism. The book examines 13 mosques across North and South America, from above the frigid Arctic Circle to tropical Trinidad and Tobago.
While the book mainly includes reporting from contemporary Muslim communities or historical communities from the 20th century, earlier Muslim communities are part of the author’s story. The opening chapter visits a Brazilian city, the site of an important Muslim slave revolt in the 19th century. As many as one-third of all Africans brought to the New World as slaves were Muslims.
Born to Lebanese parents in western Canada, Mouallem attended a mosque as a child but was not always secure in his faith. The book also reflects his own spiritual journey as he draws closer to Islam.
“Until recently, Muslim identity was imposed on me,” he writes in the book. ”But I feel different about my religious heritage in the era of ISIS and Trumpism, Rohingya and Uyghur genocides, ethnonationalism and misinformation.”
His book is a reminder that myriad Muslim communities have existed in the Americas for centuries.
Mouallem is an award-winning journalist who has written for Wired, The Guardian, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. He spoke to Religion News Service about the past, present and future of Islamic communities in North and South America. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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