During the 1930s and 40s, Arab immigrants began to establish communities and build mosques. African-American Muslims had already built their own mosques, and by 1952 there was [sic] more than 1,000 in North America.
There were no more than a dozen mosques by 1940 in the U.S. The “African-American mosques” referred to are Nation of Islam mosques, not the mosques of orthodox Islam. In the 1930s almost no Arabs arrived in the U.S. because the Immigration Act of 1924 was still in force. According to that act, immigration of any particular group was tied to a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. That meant a minuscule number of Muslim Arabs would have been admitted.
Furthermore, very few Muslim Arabs wanted to come to the U.S. during the 1930s, that decade of the Depression and mass unemployment. Nor did any arrive during World War II. After the war, when the sea lanes again were open to passenger vessels, most of the few Arabs who arrived were Lebanese and Syrian Christians, prudently leaving the lands where they felt the pressure of growing populations of Muslims. Only a very few of the “more than 1,000” mosques in North America by 1952 were Muslim mosques; at least 900 of them were the street mosques of the Nation of Islam. These should not be used as evidence of a large Muslim population.
After 30 years of excluding most immigrants, the United States flung open its doors again in 1952 and an entirely new group of Muslims came from places such as Palestine (many had come in 1948 after the establishment of Israel), Iraq, and Egypt. The 1960s saw waves of South-east Asian Muslims also making their way to America. Muslims also came from Africa, Asia and even Latin America.
Over the years, the nation [sic] gained public prominence due to famous members like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Today, there are more than 1500 Islamic centers and mosques around the country.
There is nomenclatorial confusion here: The “nation” that is mentioned appears to be the Nation of Islam, which is a black-power movement that calls itself the Nation of Islam but mainstream Muslims do not regard it as such, particularly as membership is limited to African-Americans, and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, has replaced the cult of Muhammad with his own cult of personality. Malcolm X began as a member of the Nation of Islam, who later left the Nation to become an orthodox Sunni Muslim, and was assassinated for his “treason” by a member of the Nation of Islam. Islam and the Nation of Islam are rivals and bitter — even at times murderous — enemies.
Figures vary, but experts estimate that between four and seven million Americans are Muslim.
Islam is expected to soon be the second largest religion in America. Since the attacks of 9/11, prejudice against Muslims has risen sharply.
Yes, “figures vary” but Muslims consistently overestimate their own numbers, in order to increase their perceived strength and influence. The Pew Research Center and similar groups with no axe to grind estimate the number of Muslims in 2020 as four million; it is Muslims who supply the inflated figure of seven million, without ever presenting the source for their claim. In much the same vein, Muslims talk about becoming the “second largest religion” in America either “soon” or “very soon”; the PBS series uncritically repeats this claim. No non-Muslim research group has ever suggested that Islam will become the second largest religion before 2040. Again, this is an attempt by Muslims to push a narrative that will increase their political, as well as other forms of, power.
Many Muslims have responded by becoming more active in the American political process, striving to educate their neighbors about their religion and history.
Yes, we have become very familiar with the smooth apologetics for Islam presented at all those events – the Interfaith Outreach why-can’t-we-all-get-along meetings, the Open-Mosque Nights, the Ask-A-Muslim-Anything town halls and campus performances, where plausible smiling deeply sincere apologists present Islam to innocent Infidels who, completely ignorant of the faith, and eager to believe that which causes them the least anxiety, are led by the nose. “War is deceit,” said Muhammad, and these propagandists are past masters of Taqiyya, the religiously-sanctioned dissimulation to protect from criticism both the faith of Islam, and the Believers themselves.
These propagandists for Islam are “striving to educate their neighbors” by presenting a sanitized version of Islam. You will not learn, from this suave practiced army of defenders of the faith, that the Qur’an tells Muslims that they are the “best of peoples” and non-Muslims “the most vile of created beings.” You will not learn that Muslims are instructed not to take Christians or Jews as friends, “for they are friends only with each other.” You won’t learn a single one of the more than 100 Qur’anic verses that command Muslims to take part in violent Jihad, to “fight” and to “kill” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts of” the Infidels. None of that will be mentioned. Nor will the trusting audiences of Infidels be told any of the unsavory details in the life of Muhammad, whom Muslims regard as the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) and Model of Conduct (uswa hasana). They will not be told about Muhammad’s consummation of his marriage – that is,his having sexual intercourse with –little Aisha when she was nine years old. Nor will they learn about Muhammad’s evident pleasure on learning of the murders by his loyal followers of three people – Asma bint Marwan, Abu ‘Afak, Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf – who had mocked him. They will not learn that Muhammad declared in two famous hadith that “war is deceit” and “I have been made victorious through terror.”
But what will certainly be mentioned are the two favorite verses of the apologists. The first is Qur’an 2:256 – “There is no compulsion in religion.” The Infidel audience will not be informed that this verse has been abrogated by later Qur’anic verses. What happens to those who leave the faith shows how irrelevant 2:256 is to the practice of Islam. Muslims who dare to leave Islam can be severely punished, and in some countries they still are executed as apostates. Fear of death surely constitutes “compulsion.”
And what about non-Muslims? Qur’an 2:256 sounds straightforward, and non-Muslims at an Ask-A-Muslim-Anything or Open-Mosque event will almost certainly take it at face value. But a moment’s thought about the matter will lead to quite a different conclusion. Non-Muslims are not strictly “compelled” — this is the Muslim view – to give up their religions and convert to Islam. They have three “choices” — to convert to Islam, to be killed, or to live as dhimmis under Muslim rule. As dhimmis, they must pay the Jizyah (a capitation tax on non-Muslims) to the Muslim state, and will also be subject to a host of lesser disabilities: displaying identifying marks on both their dress and dwelling; riding donkeys rather than horses; stepping aside on footpaths so as always to yield the right of way to Muslims. Isn’t this seeming “choice” really a form of “compulsion”? In order to avoid either death, or being forced to pay the Jizyah and observe other requirements made on dhimmis, all of which are daily reminders of their well-deserved humiliation, the only way out was to convert to Islam. While some Christians and Jews paid the Jizyah, others, over time, in order to free themselves of this onerous tax, converted to Islam. Any fair-minded person would describe that as “compulsion.”
The second favorite Qur’anic verse of the apologists is the carefully abridged version of 5:32 that says “If any one slew a person… it would be as if he slew a whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of a whole people…” “See – we Muslims are against killing.” But the full verse actually reads quite differently: “if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” In other words, 5:32 is not against killing. It sets out the reasons when killing is justified – “for murder or for spreading mischief (fitna) in the land.” “Spreading mischief in the land” has been taken by Islamic scholars to mean among other things, “encouraging disbelief.” So 5:32 gives license to kill the Unbelievers. And the verse that immediately follows, 5:33, provides a description of the ways to inflict that punishment. How many, in that audience of Infidels hoping to learn about Islam, will check up on the actual wording of 5:32, and how many are likely to uncritically take the version offered by their plausible Muslim explicator?
“Many Muslims have responded by becoming more active in the American political process, striving to educate their neighbors about their religion and history.” Yes, they have been very busy, “active in the American political process” (such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib), “striving to educate their neighbors” in a sanitized, taqiyya-infused version of Islam that leaves out the violent essence of the faith: Islamic supremacism, and the duty to wage Jihad against Unbelievers until Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere.
Hank Mansfield says
Fitzgerald has done good work here, hat tip.
If this PBS show is reading off a script provided for them and not just trying to fill airtime then a little detective work of our own may be in order. Propaganda is the work of governments, and a steady stream of fictionalized history can’t be allowed to sink into impressionable minds,
I’ve seen reports of the errors and outright revisionism in Howard Zinn’s school textbooks and the past year has seen the New York Times ‘1619’ project being shredded by critics for it’s inccuracies.
gravenimage says
Good post, Hank.
Hank Mansfield says
Gracias.
Charlie in NY says
Verse 5:32 says: Because of that, We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone killed a person, not in retaliation of murder, or (and) to spread mischief in the land – it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind.
Properly understood, this command was addressed only to the Jews a/k/a the “Children of Israel”. It has no application to anyone else – Muslims included. That it twists the original by adding exceptions the Jews wouldn’t recognize can only be explained by Mohammed’s limited understanding of the Judaism with which he had come in contact during his lifetime.
Here’s the Jewish version. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5: לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי בעולם, ללמד שכל המאבד נפש אחת, מעלים עליו כאילו איבד עולם מלא; וכל המקיים נפש אחת, מעלים עליו כאילו קיים עולם מלא. (“Therefore the human was created alone in the world; to teach that one who destroys a single life is considered as if he had destroyed an entire world; and one who sustains a single life, it is considered as if he had sustained an entire world.”). Similarly in Yerushalmi Talmud 4:9, Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 37a.
gravenimage says
True, Charlie. Far from this Qur’anic verse being about Muslim goodness, it is actually about threatening Jews.
tedh754 says
Maybe PBS can show that video of those Christians being slaughtered on that beach in Libya. Or report on the constant terror against non-Muslims in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. After all, those Muslims believe they are pure.
11B40 says
Greetings:
After the few times that I was able to sit through that program, I was left wondering why PBS hadn’t entitled it “Diversity Detectives”.
rubiconcrest says
Good history lesson and fact checking. I believe still to this day immigration laws exclude those who have engaged in polygamy. These laws sometimes or largely have been ignored especially recently. This also should have limited Muslim immigration.
The information in the article demonstrates the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in America and it’s influence at PBS. The MB is a force for disinformation. It is not benign. Since we are in an ideological war disinformation should be considered high on the list of subversive activities. Generations of Americans are being misinformed about Islam through tainted education curricula and man ‘news’ outlets like PBS which have a pro Islam agenda.
Is anyone in the White House noticing this? I think I’ll write a letter to the president. Thank you Hugh.
Jayell says
What the hell’s the matter with these muslims and their apologists? They were effectively never part of the northern European and North American scene until the last couple of decades, the success of these parts of the world and everything that Europe and North America stands for has absolutely nothing to do with islam (in fact the exact opposite) yet they persist in trying to push themselves where they were never invited and frankly aren’t wanted and spinning this tissue of fabricated garbage to claim some spurious element of historical cultural ownership where they have absolutely no right whatsoever to do so. If they’ve made a total mess of their parts of the world, why don’t they just learn how to put things right.rather than presuming some right to requisition the rest of the planet and make a total and utter mess of that as well? Why aren’t more people telling these preposterous, presumptious fraudsters where they get off?
11B40 says
Greetings:
Having actually watched several episodes of the program, I was confounded as to why they didn’t call it “The Diversity Detectives”.
Billy Corr says
Please list the people responsible for writing this farrago of nonsense and their affiliations.
Who the f–k are they?
Are they tenured at Yale or Georgetown or what?
Eric Snow says
It should also be noted that the Nation of Islam was still very weak and had very few mosques in 1952. Its main growth came later, thanks especially to the evangelistic efforts of Malcolm X after he got out of prison. For example, the mosques in Detroit and Chicago were numbered one and two, which implies how uncommon they were in the early 1950s. See Malcolm X’s Autobiography in this regard.
gravenimage says
True–the NoI didn’t really take off here until the violent “Black Power” movement in the 1960s.
gravenimage says
PBS Backdating and Exaggerating the Muslim Presence in the U.S. (Part 2)
…………..
These idiots confuse the Nation of Islam with orthodox Islam. Muslims themselves consider the NoI to be heretics at best–but are also happy to count them as actual Muslims for propaganda purposes.
And of course neither Malcolm X or Muhammad Ali were immigrants–both were native-born Americans who foolishly converted to the NoI. Malcolm X would pay for that with his life–not from “Islamophobes”, but from his own pious coreligionists murdering him.
Then there’s this:
“Since the attacks of 9/11, prejudice against Muslims has risen sharply.”
How many times have we heard this claptrap? You’d think from this that 9/11 was some sort of attack on Muslims, instead of a Jihad terror attack that killed almost 3,000 Americans. There have been many other Jihad terror attacks here since. This is about Muslims murderously hating Americans–not about the victims hating Muslims. Nothing but projection.
James Lincoln says
gravenimage says,
From the feature article : “Since the attacks of 9/11, prejudice against Muslims has risen sharply.”
“You’d think from this that 9/11 was some sort of attack on Muslims, instead of a Jihad terror attack that killed almost 3,000 Americans.”
Brilliant!
gravenimage says
Thanks, James.
jca reid says
PBS ought to do a major documentary on Muslims/Islam & their activities in the Slave Trade. Just to give a balanced view on things. Mind you, they’d have to censure themselves as the Truth won’t be palatable to them, African-Americans, who are Muslim, & to what they want for for America & indeed, for the World.
Garrett Driscoll says
The only positive Islamic influence on our nation is the nickname for US Marine fighters – leathernecks. For those not aware, the Marines, fighting Muslims during the Barbary war, wore Leather protection around their necks in an effort to prevent being beheaded by their adversaries.
Francis Weber says
As per Quran 8:12
gravenimage says
+1
Jake Das says
“the United States flung open its doors again in 1952 and an entirely new group of Muslims came from places such as Palestine (many had come in 1948 after the establishment of Israel)”
Why are Palestinians coming to the US since we are under Zionist control and they hate Zionists (really Jews) so much?
Francis Weber says
Haven’t you heard of the Hidjra.
Populate and take over.