Conflicts and controversies at domestic and overseas have led american citizens to target Islam greater than ever sooner than. additionally, an increasing number of in their acquaintances, colleagues, and pals are Muslims. whereas a lot has been written approximately modern American Islam and pioneering reports have seemed on Muslim slaves within the antebellum interval, relatively little is understood approximately Islam in Victorian the United States. This biography of Alexander Russell Webb, one of many earliest American Muslims to accomplish public renown, seeks to fill this gap.

Webb used to be a primary determine of yank Islam in the course of the past due 19th and early 20th centuries. a local of the Hudson Valley, he used to be a journalist, editor, and civil servant. Raised a Presbyterian, Webb early on started to domesticate an curiosity in different religions and have become relatively eager about Islam. whereas serving as U.S. consul to the Philippines in 1887, he took a better curiosity within the religion and embraced it in 1888, one of many first americans identified to have performed so. inside many years, he all started corresponding with very important Muslims in India. Webb turned an enthusiastic propagator of the religion, founding the 1st Islamic establishment within the usa: the yankee project. He wrote quite a few books meant to introduce Islam to americans, began the 1st Islamic press within the usa, released a magazine entitled The Moslem international, and served because the consultant of Islam on the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In 1901, he used to be appointed Honorary Turkish Consul common in big apple and used to be invited to Turkey, the place he acquired Ottoman medals of merits.

In this first-ever biography of Webb, Umar F. Abd-Allah examines Webb's lifestyles and makes use of it as a window wherein to discover the early heritage of Islam in the United States. aside from his followed religion, each point of Webb's existence used to be, as Abd-Allah indicates, quintessentially attribute of his position and time. It was once simply because he was once so often American that he was once in a position to function Islam's ambassador to the USA (and vice versa). As America's Muslim group grows and turns into extra obvious, Webb's existence and the virtues he championed - pluralism, liberalism, common humanity, and a feeling of civic and political accountability - exemplify what it potential to be an American Muslim.