Muslims in America Race, Politics, and Community Building by Mbaye Lo (Beltsville, MD: amana publications, 2004. 152 pages.)

Abstract

To date, most of the literature on Muslims in the United States has discussed
the formation and growth of this population from a national perspective.
Few studies, however, examine the dynamics of specific Muslim communities
from a local, city-specific context. Mbaye Lo attempts to fill this gap
through his research on the history of Muslims in Cleveland, Ohio, in his
book Muslims in America: Race, Politics, and Community Building. This
book aims to present a “comprehensive historical assessment of Muslim
communities in Cleveland” by providing a detailed examination of “their
history, their faith and the challenges they face as they establish mosques,
develop Islamic centers, and create a multiethnic community” (p. 2). Using various sources of data, such as oral histories of influential figures in the
Cleveland area and local and national surveys conducted on Muslims in the
United States, Lo discovers that “the history of Islam in Cleveland is a local
phenomenon with both national and global derivations” (p. 3).
American immigration policies, the civil rights movement, and new
interpretations of Islam are some of the factors that affected the growth of
Muslim populations throughout the nation and in Cleveland. Lo traces the
genesis of the Muslim community to Ahmadi missionaries who arrived in
the city from India in the early 1900s. Shortly after their arrival, Ahmadis
found great success in inviting African Americans to convert to Islam, creating
the foundation for what was to become a burgeoning Muslim community.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the arrival of immigrant
Muslims and members of the Nation of Islam to Cleveland helped the community
expand, while also introducing new versions of Islam to the city’s
resident Muslims. Ironically, this influx of Muslim outsiders to Cleveland
resulted in both the growth and the division of its Muslim population ...