A History of Islam in America
Asma Hasan
Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
2010, Cambridge, 978-0-52161-487-0, $21.53 pb.
This volume provides a comprehensive history and analysis of Muslims in America, starting even before the arrival of Muslim victims of the slave trade. More widely covered are the period of the Nation of Islam and the immigration waves of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The story of the Indian Sufi teacher Inayat Khan is also presented. GhaneaBassiri, a professor at Reed College, has reviewed every bit of scholarly material he could obtain, as well as such less traditional sources as early American and Muslim–American newspapers. While at times the book seems to be simply a catalog of these materials, such an assembly is, on its own, valuable. Rather than promoting one interpretation or another or advocating one view of Muslim Americans over another, GhaneaBassiri simply presents all the objective material available on American Muslims.
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