A New PBS Series Shows the History of Muslims in America

Producer & Writer: Mafaz Al-Suwaidan

Project Lead: Graham Judd

Executive Producers: Graham Judd, Maytha Alhassen, and Zaheer Ali

Hosts: Malika Bilal, Aymann Ismail, and Asma Khalid

American Muslims: A History Revealed is a series of six short documentary films that reveal and explore the early history of Muslims in America. The series is hosted by three leading American Muslim journalists: Malika Bilal, Aymann Ismail, and Asma Khalid. Over the course of the series, they travel the country to piece together stories spanning over 200 years.

The new docuseries begins with the portrait of Mamadou Yarrow, or Yarrow Mamout, an African man. What’s remarkable about the painting is not the artistry, but the subject-a formerly enslaved Black man, a Muslim who bought his freedom. This portrait was created by a famous Revolutionary War painter, showcasing a forgotten history.

Yarrow’s story is part of the PBS docuseries American Muslims exploring the untold stories of Islam in the U.S.

Cohosted by NPR’s White House correspondent Asma Khalid, the series aims to challenge and reshape our understanding of American history and identity, highlighting the contributions of Muslims in shaping the nation’s story.

Episodes

• Ep 1: Little Mosque on the Prairie
  Is This One of America’s First Mosques?
  Duration: 22m 1s

Among the millions of immigrants arriving in the United States at the turn of the 20th century were thousands of Muslims from Lebanon, then part of Greater Syria. In this film, host Aymann Ismail (author and staff writer, Slate Magazine) tells the story of two of these people, a woman named Mary Juma and her husband Hassen who homesteaded in North Dakota in the early 1900s. Traveling across the Midwest, Aymann explores how the community that Mary and Hassen founded constructed one of the first purpose-built mosques in the country, keeping their traditions alive while creating a new identity on the American frontier.

• Ep 2: Hidden from History
  From Slavery to Freedom: The Untold Story of America’s First Muslims
  Duration: 23m 19s

Even before the United States was founded, tens of thousands of Muslims were already present, captured in West Africa and brought to colonial America in chains. Host Asma Khalid (NPR’s White House correspondent and ABC News contributor) tells the surprising story of one of these people, a Muslim man named Mamadou Yarrow, who, after 45 years of enslavement, negotiated his way to freedom, bought a house in Georgetown, and had his portrait painted by the famous Revolutionary War artist Charles Willson Peale. Through Yarrow’s story, Asma reveals the little-known story of America’s first Muslims, whose labor helped build the economic foundations of the early United States.

• Ep 3: Muslims and the Civil War
  Fighting for Freedom: The Little-Known Story of Muslims and the Civil War
  Duration: 22m 24s

Muslims have been present at every defining moment in American history, including the Civil War. Malika Bilal (Senior Presenter., Al Jazeera English) tells the recently discovered story of Muhammad Kahn, an immigrant from Afghanistan who traveled to the United States in 1861, fought in the Union Army, and left behind a 200-page pension file documenting his experiences. While piecing Kahn’s story together, Malika also discovers the stories of other Muslims involved in the conflict. These include Nicholas Said, an African immigrant who fought in the United States Colored Troops, and a senior Tunisian official who wrote to the U.S. government in 1864, urging them to end slavery. This letter made its way to Senator Charles Sumner, a leading abolitionist in the United States, who referred to Islam in his speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

• Ep 4: Unexpected Unions
  How South Asian Muslims and Mexican Americans United in the 1920s
  Duration: 23m 39s

Asma Khalid travels to Sacramento and Phoenix to piece together the story of a man named Mir Dad, a South Asian Muslim who arrived in the United States in 1917 and made a home in the American Southwest. Asma discovers the prejudice faced by South Asians of all religions traveling to America in the early part of the 20th century and the race-based naturalization and immigration laws that shaped their lives. She also discovers how Mir Dad joined a growing number of South Asian and Mexican American couples who built their lives together in the 1920s and 30s, forming blended communities whose descendants still treasure their mixed heritage today. Includes readings from actors Kamal Khan and David Rasche.

• Ep 5: Muslims at the Nation’s Founding
  How South Asian Muslims and Mexican Americans United in the 1920s
  Duration: 24m 43s

Did you know that Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the Qur’an? That George Washington owned enslaved people who were Muslim? And that a Muslim diplomat broke his Ramadan fast in the White House in 1805? These are just. some of the facts that Aymann Ismail (staff writer, Slate Magazine) discovers as he explores the role that Muslims played in the imagination of America’s founding generation. Aymann’s journey takes him from George Washington’s Mount Vernon to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello but begins in the Library of Congress. Here he sees two books that symbolize the promise and contradictions of the early Republic; Jefferson’s copy of the Qur’an and an autobiography written by an enslaved African Muslim, Omar Ibn Said, who was brought to the United States during Jefferson’s presidency. Through these books, Ayman discovers how some Muslims were included in the founders’ vision of religious freedom in the nascent Republic, while other Muslims were denied all their rights, because of their race and legal status.

• Ep 6: How Islam Influenced Black Americans in 1920s Chicago
  Duration: 23m 44s

The 1920s saw a revival in Islam among Black Americans fleeing poverty and persecution in the Jim Crow South. In Northern cities including Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark, and New York, they found strength and security in a range of Muslim organizations, from the India-based Ahmadiyya movement to the homegrown Moorish Science Temple and Nation of Islam. In this film, host Malika Bilal (Senior Presenter, Al Jazeera English) tells the story of these early Black American Muslim communities through a woman named Florence Watts, who moved to the bustling South Side of Chicago around 1910, where she found work as a cook and a maid. Drawing on the work of Sylvia Chan-Malik, (author of Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam,) Malika discovers how Florence was drawn to the teachings of the Ahmadiyya missionary, Mufti Mohammad Sadiq. In 1923, she joined one of the first multi-racial Muslim communities in the country. That same year, Florence was featured in the Ahmadiyya magazine Moslem Sunrise, her image captured in one of the earliest known photographs of a group of Muslim women taken in the United States. Through Florence’s story, Malika discovers how these Muslim groups helped working-class Black Americans resist the confines of race in the United States and feel part of a global community of believers. They in turn helped to create a legacy of Islam that has been embraced by African Americans since.

Source: https://www.americanmuslimsfilm.com/

A new documentary, So You Want To Be A Muslim, directed by Hoda Elatawi, premiered on documentary Channel, with streaming available on CBC Gem starting October 23.

The film highlights the spiritual journeys of five North Americans who have converted to Islam, exploring the challenges and rewards of their transitions in a Western society that often views their decisions with skepticism.

Elatawi’s feature-length documentary chronicles the diverse experiences of these converts—three Canadians and an American couple—over a span of eight years.

Delayed in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, the film presents an intimate exploration of how adopting Islam has reshaped the lives, identities, and relationships of its subjects.

A Journey of Faith & Identity

One of the featured individuals, Barbara, was a promising musician and aspiring Anglican minister in her early 20s when she converted to Islam after marrying a Muslim man.

Despite the eventual breakdown of her marriage, her faith journey took her in unexpected directions, ultimately leading her to a fulfilling new role as a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Stephanie, a Millennial and francophone Acadian from New Brunswick now living in Ottawa, embraced Islam and adopted the hijab.

However, she continues to embrace parts of her pre-conversion life, including occasional social drinking and LGBTQ+ activism, particularly in support of her two gay fathers.

Rima, born in South Africa and raised in a culturally Jewish family, found her new Islamic identity in sharp contrast with the prejudice and Islamophobia she faced from her own relatives.

Her conversion to Islam brought her face to face with the biases within her family, complicating her rich sense of identity.

Johnae and her husband Eli, an African American couple from Puerto Rico now residing in the Bronx, also converted to Islam.

The pair live more conservatively than they did in their younger years, but their reversion to Islam has deepened their relationship with each other and their faith.

Breaking Stereotypes

The documentary reveals the complexities of living as a Muslim convert in the West. The individuals often feel torn between two worlds, struggling to find acceptance within their communities while also facing Islamophobia and misconceptions from the broader society.

Through their diverse stories, the film underscores the universal quest for meaning and belonging.

Director Hoda Elatawi hopes So You Want To Be A Muslim will serve as a tool to challenge widespread stereotypes about Islam.

“With words like ‘extremist’, ‘jihadist’, and ‘terrorist’ plaguing mainstream dialogue when the subject of Islam and Muslims come up,” Elatawi explains, “I hope the deeply personal stories revealed by the diverse group of people in my film will help break stereotypes and challenge preconceived notions about Islam.”

Produced by GAPC Entertainment, So You Want To Be A Muslim is supported by the Canada Media Fund, Ontario Creates, and several other cultural institutions. Elatawi aims to bridge the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims by focusing on the shared humanity and struggles revealed through the lens of these personal, transformative journeys.

Source: About Islam

The hero, Mohammad Salman Hamdani is a Pakistani-American NYPD cadet. The Star Wars-obsessed police cadet and EMT ran toward the Twin Towers to save lives on Sept. 11, 2001. Hamdani was recognized as a hero.

“People need to hear the story, they need to know more about Salman and about what he believed and everything that he embodied,” Eyde said. “To me, it was all the good things about America in one life that was tragically cut short.”

Wanting to take on an interfaith project, Eyde and Khalil thought about things that had changed America. They started conducting interviews in 2016 with Hamdani’s family, friends, professors, and two Muslim survivors of the attacks.

Their effort resulted in American Jedi: The Salman Hamdani Story, a 38-minute documentary that will be screened at the University of Michigan. Eyde, who has some experience with acting and producing short films, said he hopes audiences will get to know Hamdani as he did through the production process.

Source: AboutIslam.net

Host and filmmaker: Amal Mohamud

Duration: 4min

For Muslim women, wearing hijab is an act of worship as well as a way to practice modesty, a principle expected in the behavior and dress of all Muslims.

As the world marks the 11th anniversary of World Hijab Day, a new short film has been released in Canada to explore misconceptions around hijab and why some Muslim women in Edmonton choose to wear the head covering.

The film World Hijab Day shares its name with an annual event that was founded in 2013. Watch the video Here.

“I wanted to do this video to spread awareness and kind of just educate people,” said Amal Mohamud, the Edmonton filmmaker behind the project, CBC reported.

Seeing hijab as symbolizing her faith, Mohamud said she wanted people to know why Muslim women choose hijab.

In the film, part of CBC’s Creative Network that aims to amplify voices of the next generation of Canadians, Mohamud interviews community advocate Safia Ibrahim and social media influencer Hafsa Bint Yusuf, who has nearly 200,000 followers on TikTok.

Exploring people’s attitude towards hijab, Mohamud believes there is a long way to correct misconceptions about hijab and Muslim women.

Yet, she hopes her film will help diversify Canadian film and television, particularly when it comes to portraying Muslim women.

“I think we’ve never really had a documentary that just solely, focuses on the hijab,” said Mohamud.

Source: AboutIslam.net

The Toxteth Cycle Club documentary is about the Toxteth based Cycle of Life (COL), a cycling group founded in 2020 by Ibe Hayter.

Hayter, along with a team of staff and volunteers, works with children from low-income families as well as people in the community, many who have never cycled before.

“I was surprised such a small organization would get national attention, but pleased the work we’re doing is being recognized. I hope other cities would follow suit by getting more people in cycling, especially from backgrounds of people who don’t normally cycle,” Ibe told Liverpool ECHO.

“Everyone can contribute to a greener and cleaner environment by cutting down on car usage, saving the planet for future generations. Climate change is on the global agenda.”

“This program is not just about cycling, it’s also about the young people feeling part of the city, to get to know their peers and make friendships that last past the course”.

Based at The Kuumba Imani Millenium Centre on Princes Road, Cycle of Life also runs a program targeting Muslim women.

Volunteer Shazia Chaudary, who leads Women on Bikes, said the stigma needs breaking.

“I’m trying to break down that stigma, to encourage [Muslim] women to come out for cycling and learn new skills,” she said.

“When I see them getting more confidence, this inspires me to keep going,” she said.

Source: AboutIslam.net

Stacey Meets the IS Brides, which is due to be shown on BBC One on Monday night, features the presenter travelling to camps in Syria to meet women who left their own countries to join Islamic State. In one scene, trailed on Sunday night’s News at Ten, Dooley described leaving a camp and watching “women raising their index finger in an IS salute” – without making it clear that the gesture also had another meaning. Isis fighters have often deployed the single-finger gesture in propaganda images but Tell MAMA, an organization which measures anti-Muslim attacks, pointed out that the symbol had a much wider use representing Muslims’ commitment to monotheism.

“Tawhid (Tawheed) is the defining doctrine of Islam, demonstrating the oneness of Allah (God),” they said. “To reduce such a fundamental and important concept to a mere ‘IS salute’ is grossly wrong, ignorant, and damaging. This again demonstrates the importance of having Muslim representation in media, and more broadly, improving religious literacy.”

Source: The Guardian

A Documentary about Pre-911 Surveillance of Muslim American Communities

Written, Directed & Produced by Assia Boundaoui

Produced by Jessica Devaney

While investigating her neighbors’ experiences, Assia uncovers tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counterterrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11, code-named “Operation Vulgar Betrayal.” Through a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter her investigation became the documentary “The Feeling of Being Watched”.

Screenings of “The Feeling of Being Watched” took place Friday, February 15 in Toronto as part of the Habibiz exhibit and on Saturday, March 2 in London, Ontario. Filmmaker Assia Boundaoui spoke at the London, Ontario screening.

With unprecedented access, The Feeling of Being Watched weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker’s examination of why her community fell under blanket government surveillance. Assia struggles to disrupt the government secrecy shrouding what happened and takes the FBI to federal court to compel them to make the records they collected about her community public.

Assia is an Algerian-American journalist and filmmaker based in Chicago. She has reported for the BBC, NPR, PRI, Al Jazeera, VICE, and CNN. Her debut short film about hijabi hair salons for the HBO LENNY documentary series premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Website: http://www.feelingofbeingwatched.com

Runtime: 76 min

Production: Idle Wild Films

Release Date: April 13, 2018

Official Website: www.thejudgefilm.com

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS) presented a film screening of The Judge on May 31^st.  This vérité film documentary, co-produced by Erika Cohn (In Football We Trust), depicts the story of Kholoud Al-Fiqah and her position as judge in a Palestinian Shari’a court in the West Bank. The screening preceded by a short introduction by Dr. Nadia Sonneveld. After the film screening, Dr. Sonneveld provided a commentary on the film and opened the floor for discussion.

About the director

Erika Cohn is an Emmy award winning director and producer who is recognized as a top documentary filmmaker. Her film The Judge premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Cohn has stated that she herself is drawn to producing works about the intersection and tension between religion, culture and identity, as well as narratives about strong women.

About Nadia Sonneveld

Dr Nadia Sonneveld works at the department of Islam Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands and has an academic background in anthropology, Arabic, and law. The common factor in all her research activities is the focus on gender and law in the Muslim world, particularly in Egypt and Morocco. Previously, she was a guest scholar at the School of Oriental Studies (SOAS) in London, and Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. She authored Khul‘ Divorce in Egypt: Public Debates, Judicial Practices, and Everyday Life (2012), and has co-authored Women Judges in the Muslim World: A Comparative Study of Discourse and Practice, with Monika Lindbekk (2017), and Women and Social Change in North Africa: What Counts as Revolutionary? with Doris Gray (2018).

Source: Leiden University

The early days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been an anxious time for many Muslim Americans, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Overall, Muslims in the United States perceive a lot of discrimination against their religious group, are leery of Trump and think their fellow Americans do not see Islam as part of mainstream U.S. society.

At the same time, however, Muslim Americans express a persistent streak of optimism and positive feelings. Overwhelmingly, they say they are proud to be Americans, believe that hard work generally brings success in this country and are satisfied with the way things are going in their own lives – even if they are not satisfied with the direction of the country as a whole.

Indeed, nearly two-thirds of Muslim Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. today. And about three-quarters say Donald Trump is unfriendly toward Muslims in America. On both of these counts, Muslim opinion has undergone a stark reversal since 2011, when Barack Obama was president, at which point most Muslims thought the country was headed in the right direction and viewed the president as friendly toward them.

In addition, half of Muslim Americans say it has become harder to be Muslim in the U.S. in recent years. And 48% say they have experienced at least one incident of discrimination in the past 12 months…

Source: Pew Research Center

Channel 4 is facing mockery after airing a documentary which went to the lengths of getting a white woman to go undercover in ‘brownface’ make-up to show the Islamophobia faced by Muslim women. My Week As A Muslim showed Katie Freeman, who previously supported banning the burqa, facing abuse that included drinkers in a Manchester pub asking her whether she planned to blow them up.

But many viewers were left wondering why Channel 4 felt that the way to show this Islamophobia was to find a white woman and put her in ‘brownface’ make-up. Many asked pointed questions about why the documentary makers couldn’t have simply given a hidden camera to one of the hundreds of thousands of women in the UK’s 2.7 million-strong Muslim population. “Millions of Muslims in the UK experience racism,” wrote one viewer.  “Channel 4 didn’t ask them but thought better to brownface a white woman.”

Khuram Ahmed, a Muslim lawyer based in Manchester, where the documentary was filmed, wrote: “Because our oppression does not exist until a white person experiences it and legitimizes it.” Another viewer complained: “I want to see a program following a Muslim woman. Not a white woman made up as a Muslim woman. This is insulting.” …

After watching the program, many viewers expressed similar views, reacting with varying degrees of anger and mockery to the brownface make-up and the use of prosthetics to change the shape of Ms Freeman’s nose. There was also criticism of the views expressed by Ms Freeman, 42, before she went undercover as a Muslim.

The documentary showed her saying: “Banning the headdresses and burkas, I think it would make a lot of people feel a lot happier, a lot safer. I wouldn’t want to sit next to them because I’d automatically assume they’re going to blow something up.” But she condemned such Islamophobia after dressing as a Muslim during filming that coincided with the Manchester Arena terror attack.

By the end of the documentary, she had concluded: “You can’t blame the whole of the Muslims for one person’s mindless act of terror can you? Just because they choose to live their life differently to me doesn’t mean they’re any less welcome to be here.

Source: The Independent