美國的穆斯林歷史由來已久，從15世紀時，則已經參與反殖民戰役、反歧視與反政府非法監控的市民運動。
When I teach history related to
Islam or Muslims in the United States, I begin by asking students what names
they associate with these terms. The list is
consistent year after year: Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Muhammad Ali.
All of these individuals have
affected U.S. history in significant ways. If we take a step back and look at
the messages these figures communicate about Muslims in U.S. history, we see a story dominated by men
and by the Nation of Islam. Although important,
focusing solely on these stories leaves us with a skewed view of Muslims in
U.S. history. Even these examples are a stretch. Most of my
students reference 9/11 as the first time they heard of Muslims.
Mainstream textbooks do little to
correct or supplement the biases that students learn from the media. These books distort the rich and complex place of Muslims
throughout U.S. history. For example, Malik El-Shabazz (consistently referred to first by the name Malcolm X rather
than the name he chose for himself before his assassination) is framed as the
militant, angry black man, the opposite of the Christian, nonviolent Martin
Luther King Jr. Muhammad Ali is another popular representative of Muslims in
U.S. history textbooks but is misrepresented through the
emphasis on his boxing career rather than his anti-racist activism
against the Vietnam War.
Muslims have been part of our story
from the beginning. For example, although U.S.
history textbooks wouldn't dare leave out the sanitized story of Christopher
Columbus, they fail to include the Muslim-led revolt against his son,
Diego, on Dec. 25, 1522. Armed with the machetes they used
to cut cane, these rebels, including enslaved West African
Muslims, succeeded in killing a number of colonial settlers
before the insurrection was quelled; of the 15 bodies recovered, nine were
Europeans.
As Michael Gomez explains in Black Crescent:
The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas, Muslims were among the first to resist
the colonialists. In fact, colonial authorities had
long seen these "Moors" as a threat. According to Sylviane Diouf,
author of Servants of
Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, colonial
documents between the Crown and conquistadors describe enslaved Muslims as
"arrogant, disobedient, rebellious, and incorrigible." Diouf writes
that no fewer than five decrees were issued against these rebels in the first
50 years of colonization. Records from as early as 1503 confirm a request by
Nicholas de Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola, to Queen Isabella asking her to
restrict further shipment of enslaved Muslims because they were "a source
of scandal to the Indians, and some had fled their owners." It's essential that students know that resistance to colonial
domination has always been a part of our history -- and Muslims played a role
in this resistance from the earliest days.
