By Kambiz GhaneaBassiri. Muslims began arriving in the New World long before the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. The first arrivals date to the turn of the sixteenth century when European explorers and colonists crossed the Atlantic in search of new horizons and trading routes. Kambiz GhaneaBassiri's fascinating book traces the history of Muslims in the United States and their different waves of immigration and conversion across five centuries, through colonial and antebellum America, through world wars and civil rights struggles, to the contemporary era. The book tells the often deeply moving stories of individual Muslims and their lives as immigrants and citizens within the broad context of the American religious experience, showing how that experience has been integral to the evolution of American Muslim institutions and practices. This is a unique and intelligent portrayal of a diverse religious community and its relationship with America. It will serve as a strong antidote to the current politicized dichotomy between Islam and the West, which has come to dominate the study of Muslims in America and further afield. Cambridge University Press (2010),English, Paperback: 456 pages. 

"...deserves to be read widely, and its arguments deserve to be taken seriously by others in the field." --Journal of Church and State

"...this scholarly book is a valuable and welcome contribution to the historical study of Islam in the West in general, and the United States in particular....The book is highly recommended, for it serves specialists and non-specialists alike." --Digest of Middle East Studies

"...deepens our appreciation of Islam's internal diversity, reveals some of the different ways that Muslim identity has been improvised in inter-religious exchanges in America, and debunks stereotypes about what it means to be Muslim and American. This is a careful work of scholarship and a fascinating narrative history." -- Christopher G. White, Assistant Professor of Religion in America, Vassar College

"a major step forward in understanding the encounters and exchanges between Muslims and non-Muslims in the US. This richly documented and fascinating analysis provides a powerful challenge to stereotypes that exclude Islam from the orbit of 'the West.' -- Carl W. Ernst, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill