Black Crescent
The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas

This book, first published in 2005, is a social history of the experiences of African Muslims and their descendants throughout the Americas.

Michael A. Gomez (Author)

9780521600798, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 April 2005

396 pages, 7 b/w illus. 7 maps
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

'Black Crescent is a remarkable book. It is thoroughly researched, well-written and very insightful. Both academic and general readers of African American History, Atlantic History, African History, and Islamic Studies will find it an invaluable source ' History

Beginning with Latin America in the fifteenth century, this book, first published in 2005, is a social history of the experiences of African Muslims and their descendants throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean. The record under slavery is examined, as is the post-slavery period into the twentieth century. The experiences vary, arguably due to some extent to the Old World context. Muslim revolts in Brazil are also discussed, especially in 1835, by way of a nuanced analysis. The second part of the book looks at the emergence of Islam among the African-descended in the United States in the twentieth century, with successive chapters on Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X, with a view to explaining how orthodoxy arose from varied unorthodox roots.

Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. Ladinos, Gelofes and Mandingas
2. Caribbean crescent
3. Brazilian sambas
4. Muslims in New York
5. Founding mothers and fathers of a different sort: African Muslims in the Early North American South
Interlude. In a Glass darkly - elisive communities
6. Breaking away - noble Drew Ali and the foundations of contemporary Islam in African America
7. The nation
8. Malcolm
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Islamic studies [JFSR2], Slavery & abolition of slavery [HBTS], History of the Americas [HBJK], Regional studies [GTB]