The Contributions of Muslim Americans
If you listen to some mainstream media, you might be led to believe that Muslims are on a mission to undermine the United States and institute Sharia law in place of the constitution. And that belief would fly in the face of George Washington, who gladly allowed Muslim soldiers to fight in his army during the American Revolution. One notable Muslim who served under him was Peter Buckminster, who, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, fired the shot that killed British Major General John Pitcairn. In 1786, the Muslim-majority country of Morocco became the first country to recognize the United States formally.
George Washington probably wouldn’t recognize many aspects of America today, from the skyscrapers that define skylines of many American cities to President Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and the Supreme Court’s upholding of his travel ban. But he probably would appreciate that a Muslim-American architect, Fazlur Rahman Khan, was the person who came up with the design for modern skyscrapers. Khan was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh and emigrated to the United States, where he became the “Einstein of structural engineering.” Structures like the famous Sears Tower in Chicago and the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, as well as many of the skyscrapers in Manhattan (including Trump Towers), relied on his design.
Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, is arguably one of the chief architects of the modern world. He made personal computing accessible to the mass public before inventing the iPod, iPhone, and iPad; the latter two revolutionized society and put worlds of information at people’s fingertips. Jobs was not a Muslim, but he traveled to India during his college years to study Zen Buddhism and seek enlightenment. Moreover, his biological father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was a Muslim. Jandali emigrated to the United States from Syria, where he met Jobs’ mother; when she became pregnant out of wedlock, custom at the time dictated that they place the child for adoption. Though the Muslim Jandali did not raise Steve Jobs, without him, personal computing may have taken decades.
Jandali wasn’t the only Syrian-born Muslim-American to bring something great to America. At the St. Louis World Fair in 1904, an ice cream seller ran out of dishes for serving his delectable, all-American treat. Not to worry, because just a few booths over was Ernest Hamwi, who sold a Syrian sweet called zalabia, something that resembled a waffle. He rolled his zalabia into cone-like shapes for his neighbor, who put the ice cream into them for serving. And thus the ice cream cone was born.
Muhammad Ali, the great boxing hero, was a Muslim, along with Mike Tyson and basketball stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal. Comedian Aziz Ansari grew up in a Muslim family, and fellow comedian Dave Chappelle converted to Islam as an adult. Today, you are more likely to be treated by a Muslim doctor than a Christian one. Muslims have long had a significant impact on American history and culture, from becoming the de facto measure of religious liberty in the days of the founding to actively creating many aspects of America that we now take for granted.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Islam in America.” PBS.
“Jefferson, the Constitution, and the Quran: Why the Founding Father’s Defense of Muslims is Really Important Today”, by Denise Spellberg. Newsweek. June 3, 2017.
“Steve Jobs.” Wikipedia.
“The Muslims who shaped America – from brain surgeons to rappers”, by Stuart Jeffries. The Guardian. December 8, 2015.