Customer comments on this selection.
 A timely book
This look at the life of Muhammad Alexander Russell Webb, one of the first American converts to Islam, is well researched and written in a language that captivates one and takes you on a journey with Mr. Webb on his many travels. People in the West still view Islam as a late entrant to the scene in the US but as muslims continue to integrate in the American social life, one will read and hear (and see hopefully) more and more stories of how muslims have always been a part of the fabric of America. Some estimates say that almost 30% of the slaves brought over to the US were muslims and we have Alex Kronemer coming up with a documentary on the life a African slave who was a Prince and how he fought for and won his freedom after 40 years of slavery here to go back to Africa (The Prince among slaves). Dr. Abd-Allah is educated from Columbia, Cornell and the Univ. of Chicago and taught at King Abdul Aziz university in Saudia for 18 years. He has been back in the USA since 2000 and is the head of a non-profit organization called the Nawawi foundation based in Chicago which is dedicated to provide relevant, meaningful Islamic teachings to America's growing first and second generation Muslims - teachings firmly rooted in authentic scholarship and taught in a way that is dynamic and applicable to the modern world (See website www.nawawi.org). Dr. Abd-Allah is and has always been a voice of moderation amongst muslims scholars and is dedicated to more interfaith dialogue amongst people of various faiths. He has always been a proponent of peace and he has many Audio CD's out in the market dealing with various issues affecting muslims and has made his feelings on extremism and violence quite clear. Mr. Rubin needs to check his sources (if any) before making comments on Dr. Abd-Allah.
Read the book, you will like it. It is a book about a man of his times, who lived in a time of turmoil and great change in the USA, andshould interest any student of American and Islamic history.
 A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb
Abd-Allah, chair of the Chicago-based Nawawi Foundation, an organization promoting education about Islam, explores the life of Alexander Russell Webb (1846-1916), a convert to Islam who started some of the earliest U.S. Muslim periodicals.
Abd-Allah traces Webb's early life to look for his inspirations for his subsequent conversion. He grew up in upstate New York at the time of the Second Great Awakening, exposing him to an active theological discourse. The Civil War dominated his teenage years. Abd-Allah blames the religious establishment for "beat[ing] the drums" of war and suggests that the destruction wrought might have turned Webb against traditional religion. He also grew disillusioned with post-Civil War materialism and sought solace in other spiritual movements, opening the door to his eventual conversion to Islam. After years of activity in Missouri journalism and support for the Democratic Party, Webb received a presidential appointment to be consul in Manila.
While the Catholic church dominated the Philippines, Webb learned about Islam through Indian merchants and the writing of Indian Muslim intellectuals. It was not long before he converted to Islam. In 1891, he entered into correspondence with prominent Indian scholars and, the next year, resigned his post to travel around India to study and raise money to support a proselytizing mission in the United States. In 1893, he returned to the United States and established a mission and publishing center funded first by Indian and later Ottoman patrons. In 1901, he became the honorary Ottoman consul in New York.
Webb submerged himself in his new faith and wrote that, among Indian Muslims, he had found a society superior to Western civilization. Upon his return, he did not shy away from public lectures but found study circles and, especially, publishing a better investment of time. Eventually, though, neither Indian nor Ottoman patronage could keep Webb solvent. His missions collapsed under a mountain of debt.
Webb's story may have resonance with Abd-Allah, who converted to Islam after reading the biography of Malcolm X. Abd-Allah subsequently drifted from the Nation of Islam to radical Saudi interpretations of religion; for more than fifteen years he taught at King Abdul-Aziz University in Saudi Arabia. Like Webb, he is an American convert to Islam who seeks to propagate its spread.
While Abd-Allah produces a well-researched work, making full advantage of Webb's myriad papers and publications (but not State Department or presidential archives mentioning Webb's mission), his sympathy may lead him to avoid critical questions. What does Webb's abandonment of his diplomatic post say about the compatibility of Islam and U.S. government service, especially after his acceptance of work for a foreign government? Is propagation of Islam dependent upon foreign subsidy? How does Webb compare to those today who drift from liberalism to "spiritualism" and, then, immerse themselves in Islam? For this, the reader will have to wait for another author to examine Webb. For those following Abd-Allah's path, though, the narrative will provide solace.
Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2007
Webb could be called the founder of Amerin Islam
In 1887 Alexander Russell Webb was made the American counsul in the Phillipines, at the time a Spanish colony largely Roman Catholic, but with a Muslim minority. Mr. Webb apparently experenced the Muslim faith at this time and in 1888 he converted. Upon his return to the United States he became active in promoting the Muslim faith including the writing of articles and the creation of study circles in various cities.
Webb could well be called the father of the Muslim movement in America and he lived a life that reflected the best of what the Muslim religion could be. After his death in 1916, he was largely forgotten and the center of Muslim religion in the US moved to Noble Drew Ali in Chicago whose early writings implied that he knew or at least had heard of Webb. After Drew Ali's death the Muslim faith in American split into many factions.
This is the first ever biography of Webb.
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