Full Description
Muslims have been shaping the Americas and the Caribbean for more than five hundred years, yet this interplay is frequently overlooked or misconstrued. Brimming with revelations that synthesize area and ethnic studies, Crescent over Another Horizon presents a portrait of Islam's unity as it evolved through plural formulations of identity, power, and belonging. Offering a Latino American perspective on a wider Islamic world, the editors overturn the conventional perception of Muslim communities in the New World, arguing that their characterization as "minorities" obscures the interplay of ethnicity and religion that continues to foster transnational ties.
Bringing together studies of Iberian colonists, enslaved Africans, indentured South Asians, migrant Arabs, and Latino and Latin American converts, the volume captures the power-laden processes at work in religious conversion or resistance. Throughout each analysis-spanning times of inquisition, conquest, repressive nationalism, and anti-terror security protocols-the authors offer innovative frameworks to probe the ways in which racialized Islam has facilitated the building of new national identities while fostering a double-edged marginalization. The subjects of the essays transition from imperialism (with studies of morisco converts to Christianity, West African slave uprisings, and Muslim and Hindu South Asian indentured laborers in Dutch Suriname) to the contemporary Muslim presence in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Trinidad, completed by a timely examination of the United States, including Muslim communities in "Hispanicized" South Florida and the agency of Latina conversion. The result is a fresh perspective that opens new horizons for a vibrant range of fields.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Latino America in the Umma/the Umma in Latino America (John Tofik Karam, MarÍa del Mar LogroÑo Narbona, and Paulo G. Pinto)
Part I: Reconsidering History
Chapter One. "De los Prohibidos": Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America (Karoline P. Cook)
Chapter Two. African Rebellion and Refuge on the Edge of Empire (John Tofik Karam)
Chapter Three. Ethnic and Religious Identification among Muslim East Indians in Suriname (1898-1954) (Ellen Bal and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff)
Part II. Contemporary Cartographies
Chapter Four. Institutionalizing Islam in Argentina: Comparing Community and Identity Configurations (Silvia Montenegro)
Chapter Five. Conversion, Revivalism, and Tradition: The Religious Dynamics of Muslim Communities in Brazil (Paulo G. Pinto)
Chapter Six. Guests of Islam: Conversion and the Institutionalization of Islam in Mexico (Camila Pastor de Maria y Campos)
Chapter Seven. Cubans Searching for a New Faith in a New Context (Luis Mesa Delmonte)
Chapter Eight. Muslims in Martinique (Liliane Kuczynski)
Chapter Nine. Forming Islamic Religious Identity among Trinidadians in the Age of Social Networks (Halima-Sacadia Kassim)
Part III. Islam Latina/o
Chapter Ten. Dis-covering a Historical Consciousness: The Creation of a US Latina/o Muslim Identity (Hjamil A. MartÍnez-VÁzquez)
Chapter Eleven. Mapping Muslim Communities in "Hispanicized" South Florida (Mirsad Krijestorac)
Chapter Twelve. Double-Edged Marginality and Agency: Latina Conversion to Islam (Yesenia King and Michael P. Perez)
Conclusion
List of Contributors
Index
