Pioneers of Islam in North America
Authors: Waugh Earle 
Published: August 2023

Pioneers bring new, distinctive, and transformative elements to the cultural matrix, building upon trends, perceptions, and situations. The concept of a pioneer as it has developed is itself problematic, since it presupposes a fixed cultural phenomenon applicable in a variety of instances and without attention to pre-existing groups, institutions, or cultural expressions that may have played a role in the “new” formation. Unfortunately, much of the treatment usually found under the term “pioneer” assumes a tabula rasa environment, but this is not the case in North America, as Dunbar-Ortiz eloquently indicates. Those pertinent to being designated “pioneers” focus attention on individuals and movements that established identifiable Islamic organized entities in North America. They built upon Islamic linguistic, cultural, and social orientations they either brought with them as immigrants or were present on the North American continent.

“Pioneer,” thus, is understood to be flexible with regard to time frames, as well as the designation of “new.” Furthermore, since the geographic region of North America is itself diverse, separate analyses of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean are made here. This, despite arguments by some scholars on the vagaries of such hermetically defined entities, appears to be the most adequate format for this summary review. Indeed, there is ample evidence of crossovers between these countries.

Because of Islam’s long interaction with Christianity, and European countries that crossed the Atlantic, it follows, then, that perspectives and biases from European Christianity would affect the religion’s growth in North America. In fact, Islamic influences, and Christian antagonism to them, were known in North America’s early European expansion on the continent; indeed, some played a role in North American cultural development. All the so-called world religions have adopted incorporative and encompassing strategies vis-à-vis older, traditional religious patterns; some have been aggressively missionary-oriented, while others have generally expanded by a process of osmosis. Apart from its early years, Islam has tended toward the latter pattern. It should not surprise us, then, that conflicts between Christianity and Islam should have been a subtext of Islamic growth throughout the world. With the widespread influence of Christianity in the conquests of the Americas and their subsequent occupation, it is reasonable to look for competitive factors of cultural influence as they interacted. Interreligious conflict played a role in the migrations of groups such as the pilgrims to the United States. Undoubtedly, the mixed relationship between European Christendom and the Muslim world played a role in early attitudes within the North American context, with Europe welcoming and expanding on Islamic scholarship in many areas of knowledge, while the Church was vigorously opposing Islam as a religion.

Among other features of this history, there were, then, pre-existing conceptual understandings and trends open to pioneers for their usage and reaction. A cultural attitude of positive reinforcement of Muslim presence has been operational within Muslims themselves toward settling in new environments. It derives from Muslim cultural contexts and predisposes them to work positively within any new situation. Consider the concept of rihla, an old Arab literary trope often associated with Ibn Battuta (d. 1369) and religious journeys such as the hajj, a motif fully embraced by Islam from its early days. Believers espoused it as a way of relating to new realities—viewing their role as one of appropriating God’s world regardless of where they traveled. In effect, the whole world was God’s, and Muslims were welcome in it. Hence Islam also had the potential to be in North American because they to feel at home wherever God would lead.

In contrast, Western scholarship has tended to emphasize the philosophical, legal and theological constructions of Islam in comparing it with Christian or secular realities; this may have skewed studies away from other realities in the development of this religion outside its original home. In this regard, most Muslim believers find solace in sociocultural dimensions, such as eid celebrations, Islamic rituals, food protocols, Qur’anic recitations, and popular religious symbols. The interaction of Islam in North America requires examining wider focus in determining its successes. From that perspective, the examination of Islam on the continent is in its beginnings.

It should also be noted that those foundational to building new American institutions utilized various models of Islam available in different countries of the Islamic world. This has resulted in a multidimensional religious reality on the continent. Finally, various changing social attitudes are evident in North America’s history in relation to Islam and these have played a role in the religion’s ongoing development, such as the attractiveness of Sufism’s apparent passivism and, perhaps more, the role of conversion and antipathies like Islamophobia. These elements are all ongoing in the understanding of the way in which pioneer activities have taken place on the continent.