Black Crescent

The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas

Browse Return to Previous Page       Related Subjects African American Studies All Subjects American Studies Islamic studies Latin American & Caribbean Studies Religious studies

by Michael Gomez

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published May 2005, 400 pages, paper

ISBN 0521600790

Beginning with Latin America in the fifteenth century, this book is a social history of the experiences of African Muslims and their descendants throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean. The record under slavery is examined, as is the post-slavery period into the twentieth century. The experiences vary, arguably due to some extent to the Old World context. Muslim revolts in Brazil are also discussed, especially in 1835, by way of a nuanced analysis. The second part of the book looks at the emergence of Islam among the African-descended in the United States in the twentieth century, with successive chapters on Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X, with a view to explaining how orthodoxy arose from varied unorthodox roots.