Islam in the United States
Islam is the third largest religion in the United States (1%), behind Christianity (63%) and Judaism (2%), and equaling the shares of Buddhism and Hinduism.[1] A 2017 study estimated that 1.1% (or 3.45 million Americans) of the population of the United States are Muslim.[2] In 2017, twenty states, mostly in the South and Midwest, reported Islam to be the largest non-Christian religion. In 2020, the U.S. Religion Census found there to be 4.45 million Muslim Americans, or roughly 1.3% of the population.[3]
The first Muslims to arrive in America were enslaved people from West Africa (such as Omar ibn Said and Ayuba Suleiman Diallo). During the Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 10 to 20 percent[4][5] of the slaves brought to colonial America from West Africa were Muslims,[6][7] however Islam was suppressed on plantations.[4] Nearly all enslaved Muslims and their descendants converted to Christianity during the 18th and 19th centuries, though the Black power movement of the 20th century would later influence the revival of Islam among descendants of slaves. Prior to the late 19th century, the vast majority of documented Muslims in North America were merchants, travelers, and sailors.[6]
From the 1880s to 1914, several thousand Muslims immigrated to the United States from the former territories of the Ottoman Empire and British India.[8] The Muslim population of the U.S. increased dramatically in the second half of the 20th century due to the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished previous immigration quotas.[9] About 72 percent of American Muslims are immigrants or "second generation".[10][11]
In 2005, more people from Muslim-majority countries became legal permanent United States residents—nearly 96,000—than there had been in any other year in the previous two decades.[12][13] In 2009, more than 115,000 Muslims became legal residents of the United States.[14]
American Muslims come from various backgrounds and, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, are one of the most racially diverse religious groups in the United States.[15] According to a 2017 study done by the Institute for Social Policy, "American Muslims are the only faith community surveyed with no majority race, with 26 percent white, 18 percent Asian, 18 percent Arab, 9 percent black, 7 percent mixed race, and 5 percent Hispanic".[16] The Pew Research Center estimates about 73% of American Muslims are Sunni and 16% are Shia; the remainder identify with neither group, and may include heretical movements such as the Nation of Islam, Ahmadiyya, or non-denominational Muslims.[a][17] Conversion to Islam in large cities[18] has also contributed to its growth over the years.
History[edit]
Historical overview[edit]
The early history of Muslims in the New World is the subject of debate. Historians argue that Muslims first arrived in the Americas in the early 16th century in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. All analysts agree that the first large population of Muslims consisted of African slaves. Most slaves who tried to maintain Islamic religious practices after their arrival were forcibly converted to Christianity. In the mid-seventeenth century, Ottoman Muslims are documented to have immigrated with other European immigrants, such as Anthony Janszoon van Salee a merchant of mixed origin from Morocco. Immigration drastically increased from 1878 to 1924 when Muslims from the Balkans, and Syria settled in modern-day Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota. During that era, the Ford Company employed Muslims as well as African-Americans, since they were the most inclined to work in its factories under demanding conditions. By the 1930s and 1940s, Muslims in the US built mosques for their communal religious observance. At present, the number of Muslims in the US is variously estimated at 3-4 million, and Islam is soon predicted to become the second-largest religion in the US.[19][20]
Early records[edit]
One of the earliest accounts of Islam's possible presence in North America dates to 1528, when a Moroccan slave, called Mustafa Azemmouri, was shipwrecked near what is now Galveston, Texas.[21] He and three Spanish survivors subsequently traveled through much of the American southwest and the Mexican interior before reaching Mexico City.
Historian Peter Manseau wrote:
Views[edit]
American populace's views on Islam[edit]
A nationwide survey conducted in 2003 by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported that the percentage of Americans with an unfavorable view of Islam increased by one percentage point between 2002 and 2003 to 34%, and then by another two percentage points in 2005 to 36%. At the same time the percentage responding that Islam was more likely than other religion to encourage violence fell from 44% in July 2003 to 36% in July 2005.[203]