In the United States, Islam is still a minority religion, though a fast-growing one. Although population estimates are little more than guesses, the combination of African American converts, recent immigrants from Pakistan, Iran and Africa, and second- and third-generation Arabs have established Islam as a major part of the American religious scene.
Nonetheless, American Muslims are almost invisible in popular culture. There are no notable Muslim elected officials, few Muslim celebrities and few public figures who identify themselves as Muslim. This invisibility reinforces the widespread ignorance of Islam that is endemic in America, an ignorance invaded only by Hollywood images of Muslim terrorists.
In fact, as Jane Smith notes in her wonderful survey, "Islam in America," many American Muslims are so disturbed and so threatened by these negative stereotypes that, until recently, they have taken great pains to disguise their religious identity in the hopes that they might safely navigate under the radar screen of our national animus. After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, there were multiple episodes of anti-Muslim violence before it was revealed that the attack was the work of two disgruntled white Protestant supremacists.
There have been remarkably few books that assess the wide variety of Islam in America. While the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan do register on the national consciousness, the Nation represents a small fraction of American Islam, and many Muslims do not even consider the Nation truly Islamic. Smith assumes no knowledge on the part of the reader, and she spends a quarter of the book offering a condensed primer on Islam and Muslims, covering everything from religious beliefs to historical developments and social mores. She then turns to the beliefs and sects that form the tapestry of Islam in America.
As with many Christian denominations and Judaism, there is no central doctrinal authority for Muslims. Different sects interpret the Koran and the life of Muhammad differently. In the African American community alone, there are dozens of Muslim sects, some of which adhere to "orthodox" (Sunni) Islam, and some of which are even more removed from that fold than the Nation of Islam. One of the leading figures of the orthodox branch is the Imam Wallace Muhammad, who is the son of the Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the Nation. In the mid-1980s, Warith Deen rejected the racialism of the Nation and declared himself a Sunni; he was the first Muslim, Smith writes, to be asked to open the U.S. Senate with a prayer.
