Thread by @thewalrus

Stay tuned for a Twitter takeover from @OmarMouallem talking about the cultural connections between Indigenous and Muslim people explored in his new book, Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas. thewalrus.ca/praying-to-the… 1/21

Hi Twitter. This is @OmarMouallem. It’s the day after National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the first day of Islamic Heritage Month, so I thought I’d tell you about the historical links between Indigenous and Muslim people in the Americas. thewalrus.ca/praying-to-the… 2/21

There are many links between these disparate communities, though no single through line. Some exemplify mutual affinity and solidarity, some expose Muslim complicity in colonial oppression, and some simply remind us of universal early European antipathy for non-Christians. 3/21

The links begin with Columbus’s voyage: he sent an Arabic-speaking Morisco to interpret for the Taíno, whom he mistook for Asian. “The first words to pass between Europeans and Americans…were in the sacred language of Islam.” (@SamHaselby)
aeon.co/essays/muslims… 4/21

The principle “justifying” Europeans’ claim to Indigenous land was that God allowed them this right so long as they converted inhabitants to Christianity. It’s derived from “The Requirement,” a Spanish decree offering a chance at “peaceful submission” used to convert Moors. 5/21

The Reconquista of Muslim Spain served as a blueprint for occupying Indigenous land, hence why Indigenous Americans were sometimes referred to as moriscos/moriscas and their sacred sites as mezquitas (mosques). thewalrus.ca/praying-to-the… 6/21

As many as 3 million Muslim Africans were enslaved in the Americas. While their Islamic traditions swiftly dissipated, some were syncretized with sacred Indigenous rituals and other faith traditions in the formation of Candomblé, a Black diasporic faith in Brazil. 7/21

Muslim prophet Noble Drew Ali, claiming to be an orphan raised in a Cherokee tribe, used some Native American concepts to form the first Islamic sect tailored to the conditions of “Black” people (they prefer “Moorish”). 8/21 broadview.org/moorish-scienc…

Relations between Muslim and Indigenous people on Turtle Island began in earnest with Western settlement. Thousands of Syrian Lebanese immigrants (including my ancestors) took up homesteading, peddling, and fur trading in the Prairies and NWT. 9/21

In a sense, they were (like all settlers) complicit actors in an aggressive occupation, accelerants of ethnic cleansing. But some deep friendships and families formed, especially in Turtle Mountain Reservation, North Dakota, where an Arab Métis community emerged c. 1900. 10/21

Some notable Muslims who married into the Ojibwe/Métis community are “the Syrian Bear Wrestler” Joe Albert and Albert Ferris, the grandfather of renowned Ojibwe/Métis/Lebanese artist Albert Lee Ferris. 11/21

In Prairie Peddlers, Elders recall that the predominantly Muslim Arab merchants “displayed a sense of equality...honesty and amiability.” Similar praise was given to arctic trader Bedouin Ferran, who in 1964 became the first Muslim Canadian elected to public office. 12/21

The most significant Muslim Indigenous community is in Chiapas, Mexico, where 500–700 Tzotzil Maya converted en masse in the mid-1990s, led by a harsh cultish Spaniard “Emir.” All have since left his sect, but hundreds still practise in their own mosques. 13/21

For my book, I spent some time with Maya members of a mosque in San Cristóbal de las Casas, led by a young imam and former Zapatista whose story is far too extraordinary to encapsulate here. (You’ll just have to read the book!) 14/21

Muslim–Indigenous relations have often been strained, a consequence of the racial politics imbued in any settler-colonial project like the modern Americas. But, recently, I’ve seen genuine efforts in mine and other Muslim communities to be better guests of Turtle Island. 15/21

Take the Midnight Sun Mosque, in Inuvik, NWT. Inuvialuit and First Nations participated in its opening ceremony, in 2010, and the largely refugee congregation reciprocated the welcome by installing the area’s first food bank on the property. 16/21 thewalrus.ca/praying-to-the…

The Arctic Food Bank is led by a Sudanese refugee who briefly worked at Grollier Hall residential school before it closed, in 1997. It imports over $100,000 of food annually for hundreds of families, supports hunters, and gifts school supplies. cbc.ca/news/canada/no… 17/21

Another example is El-Tawhid Juma Circle, also known as Unity Mosque, a radically inclusive movement born in Toronto. It has made decolonization central to its services, including robust land acknowledgments and smudging by First Nations Elders. 18/21

Anecdotally, I’ll add that more and more Canadian imams have begun addressing anti-Indigenous oppression in their Friday sermons since the recent unearthing of more than 3,000 unmarked graves of Indgenous children. It’s a hopeful step in the right direction. 19/21

That’s it from me, @OmarMouallem. If you want to read more on this topic, Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas is available for order here: prayingtothewest.com 20/21

Or you can read @FatimaBSyed’s review of my book here. Thank you for reading this far, and thanks to @thewalrus for giving me the keys to their Twitter account! thewalrus.ca/praying-to-the… 21/21