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.