{"id":1864,"date":"2019-09-23T10:09:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T14:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionnow\/?p=1864"},"modified":"2019-09-23T10:16:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T14:16:09","slug":"todays-diverse-american-muslim-population-first-arrived-400-years-ago-slave-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionnow\/2019\/09\/todays-diverse-american-muslim-population-first-arrived-400-years-ago-slave-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Diverse American Muslim Population First Arrived 400 Years Ago as Part of the Slave Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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In this Sept. 7, 2017 photo, Tahirah Clark, an attorney for the Muslim enclave of Islamberg, prays in the community\u2019s mosque in Tompkins, N.Y. The enclave near the Catskill Mountains is dogged by terror accusations, many made on right-wing websites. Though police and analysts dismiss those accusations, they have persisted from the time the enclave was settled in the 1980s. (AP Photo\/Mark Lennihan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Saeed Ahmed Khan, Wayne State University<\/p>\n

Most Americans say they don\u2019t know a Muslim<\/a> and that much of what they understand about Islam is from the media.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising then to see the many misunderstandings that exist about Muslims. Some see them as outsiders and a threat to the American way of life<\/a> and values. President Donald Trump\u2019s controversial policy to impose a ban on Muslims<\/a> from seven countries entering into the United States played into such fears.<\/p>\n

What many don\u2019t know, however, is that Muslims have been in America well before America became a nation. In fact, some of the earliest arrivals to this land were Muslim immigrants \u2013 forcibly transported as slaves in the transatlantic trade, whose 400th anniversary<\/a> is being observed this year.<\/p>\n

The first American Muslims<\/h2>\n

Scholars estimate that as many as 30% of the African slaves brought to the U.S.<\/a>, from West and Central African countries like Gambia and Cameroon, were Muslim. Among the difficulties they faced, were also those related to their faith.<\/p>\n

As a scholar<\/a> of Muslim communities in the West, I know African slaves were forced to abandon their Islamic faith and practices by their owners, both to separate them from their culture and religious roots and also to \u201ccivilize\u201d<\/a> them to Christianity.<\/p>\n

Historian Sylviane Diouf<\/a> explains how despite such efforts, many slaves retained aspects of their customs and traditions<\/a>, and found new, creative ways to express them. Slave devotionals sung in the fields, for example, kept the tunes and memory of a bygone life alive well after the trauma of dislocation.<\/p>\n

Diouf argues that blues music, one of the quintessential forms of American culture, can trace its origins<\/a> to Muslim influences from the slave era. She also demonstrates how the famous blues song, \u201cLevee Call Holler,\u201d has a style and melody that comes from the Muslim call to prayer, the \u201cadhan.\u201d<\/p>\n