’A Muslim in Victorian America’ offers evidence that religion does not subvert patriotism, citizenship

The tale of an American who turned to Islam in the 1800s is a fascinating one

SOMETIMES a book finds you and serendipitous events are the result of greater guiding forces. I was expecting to review “Victorian Muslim,” the biography of the Liverpool lawyer William Henry Abdullah Quilliam who established the first community of Muslim converts in Victorian Britain.

I ended up with “A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb” by Umar F. Abd-Allah, which has just been republished. Like Quilliam, Webb was largely forgotten after his death. Although Webb remains one of the most remarkable figures in the early history of Islam in the US, he was not the first Muslim in America. The documented arrival of Muslims occurred in the 17th century with the arrival of slaves from Africa. But very few people are aware that the presence of Islam in America, in fact, predates Columbus. By the ninth and 10th centuries, early Muslim seafarers had the technological expertise to reach the New World. Native Americans were in contact with Muslim travelers, especially the Cherokee Native Indians. A Cherokee chief known by his Muslim name Ramadhan Ibn Wati can be traced back to the year 1866. Furthermore, a research team from the University of Rhode Island has found ninth century clay pots containing Qur’anic manuscripts written in Kufic script in a mass tomb. According to Barry Fell, excavations have uncovered writings in Arabic which prove that Arabs settled in Nevada during the 7th and 8th centuries. Much remains to be discovered about the little-known existence of Native American Muslims but the future is promising.

This amazing biography of Alexander Russell Webb sheds light on one of the most remarkable figures in the history of early Islam in America. Alexander Russell Webb was born in 1846. His father ran a printing shop and was both the owner and editor of the Hudson Daily Star, which was one of Hudson’s oldest newspapers. During that time, reading newspapers was the best way of being informed. He adopted his father’s profession, which explains why Webb was immersed in the prevailing American culture of the time as well as his passion for politics.

Webb has indicated that his journey to Islam began in 1872 when he formally rejected Christianity.

“Fortunately, I was of an inquiring turn of mind, I wanted a reasonable foundation for everything and I found that neither laymen nor clergy could give me any rational explanation of their faith; that when I asked them about God and the trinity, and life and death, they told me either that such things were mysteries or where beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals,” said Webb, according to the book.

He went through several phases. He successively adopted materialism, Buddhism, theosophy and then finally embraced Islam. At about the same time, some prominent people also converted to Islam in America and Britain. Quilliam (1856-1932) was a lawyer and is considered the first native-born Briton who declared his faith openly. He launched an Islamic Mission that lasted many years and was remarkably successful. Webb was greatly inspired by Quilliam but did not achieve his success.

Sir Rowland George Allanson, Lord Headley, is another eminent personality who converted to Islam around 1873 but he waited until 1913, three years before Webb died to declare it openly. Headley, like Webb and Quilliam, was convinced that Islam had a future in the West.

“I feel sure that if the people of England fully grasped what Islam really is, common sense, and the natural desire we all have to use our reasoning faculties as well as our emotions, it would do much to remove the misunderstandings which exist,” he is known to have said.

However, one of the most remarkable Western converts to Islam of this period was Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867-1963), the eldest daughter of the seventh Earl of Dunmore.

“I do not know the precise moment when the truth of Islam dawned on me. It seems I have always been a Muslim,” she said.

Marmaduke Pickthall is another significant British convert and he even supported the Woking Mosque. In France, a famous convert was Rene Guenon known as Shaykh Abd-al-Wahid Yahya, and, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Leopold Weiss, known as Muhammad Asad, wrote the classic “The Road to Makkah.” All these converts have exerted an influence on their contemporaries and subsequent generations.

While Webb was seeking a meaningful spiritual life, he was also trying to find another form of livelihood outside journalism. During that period of spiritual quest, he married Ella Hotchkiss in 1877. For both it was a second marriage. Webb’s first wife had perished in a fire and Ella had a daughter from a previous marriage. They spent the rest of their lives together and Webb treated his adopted daughter, Elizabeth, as his own.

For some time, he worked as a theater manager and even set up a traveling theater but all the plays he produced were unsuccessful and he went back to what he did best, journalism. Webb worked for the Missouri Republican until late 1887 when he was asked to fill the position for the US consul to the Philippines. His allegiance to Democratic politics and his personal connections led to this appointment.

Discovering Islam His diplomatic career was short-lived but it was in Manila that Webb discovered the teachings of Islam. Shortly after his arrival he and his wife and children embraced Islam. Soon after his conversion, he met Hajee Abdulla Arab, a prosperous merchant from Calcutta who was based in Madinah and Jeddah. Known for his devotion to Islamic causes, he encouraged Webb to establish a mission to propagate Islam in the US. When Arab returned to India, he sent Webb a telegram confirming that the financial arrangements for starting the American mission were completed. Webb at that point had requested a transfer, citing his wife’s poor health but having received no answer, he thought it was the right time to resign.

When he left Manila, he began a journey to secure the funds for his American mission. He would travel for almost half a year and this voyage constituted one of the most memorable experiences of his life. But Webb’s history of failed ventures was going to repeat itself. Despite this, he was animated by a sincere belief that the mission would succeed by virtue of its inherent merit.

Alexander Webb arrived in New York in February 1893 and wasted no time in launching his mission, which attempted to create an “Islamic presence” throughout the US. He preferred to be in direct contact through tours, lectures and excelled at parlor talks which were intimate gatherings held in private homes.

Webb also produced high-quality publications, journals and books for a period of three years. Between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, many Arab-Americans were published but few succeeded. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that an American Islamic press was finally established.

The First Parliament of Religions was held in the wake of the Chicago World Fair. It opened on Sept. 10, 1893 and ran for 17 days. Islam, compared to other faiths, received modest attention. Furthermore, no Muslim from the Islamic world was found to give a lecture on Islam and it seems the organizers chose Webb by default. His participation in the event constituted the highlight of his American Islamic Propaganda. A few months later, his mission ran into serious financial problems. His belief that the mission would be self-sufficient in five years was overly optimistic. He also blamed the failure of his mission on the absence of funds promised by Hajee Abdulla Arab.

It is true that Arab had shown an excessive enthusiasm and hastiness and the funds he had promised never came.

But Webb undoubtedly lacked managerial skills and he never attempted to run his organization on a tight budget.

The most noteworthy event that took place during Webb’s final years was his appointment as Honorary Turkish Consul General in New York by Sultan Abdul Hamid as a reward for his tireless efforts in the service of Islam.

Webb then traveled to Istanbul in 1901 where he was received by the Sultan in person who awarded him the title of “Bey” and decorated him with the Ottoman Medal of Merit.

Apart from this exotic interlude, Webb spent his last years in relative obscurity.

Yet, long ago, he had the premonition that he would have to rely on his personal resources. During his stay in Manila, he wrote in a letter to Budruddin Kur:

“It seemed that I was destined to work out quietly, and in my own way the bringing of countrymen to a knowledge of Islam, and it hardly seemed probable then than any other way was open.”

Webb’s adoption of Islam never clashed with his sense of being American, it even increased his love for his country. Islam did not distort his self-image as an American citizen, but on the contrary strengthened it and created a selfconfident and optimistic religious vision.

The ideals he had found in Islam echoed the American ideals he believed in.

Webb never stopped living as an American and always felt he was part of the society. He also understood the true spirit of Islam and Hassan Ali, one of his earliest friends described him as a “proper Muslim” and asserted that his heart was filled with the love of God and his prophet.

“Perhaps, his legacy may once again play a role in furthering and protecting an even more pluralistic America, one eager to extend its hand to the world at large and its own growing Muslim community at home in the spirit Webb invoked more than a century ago when he addressed the Muslims of India: ‘I want to take your hand and carry it across the sea to be seized in an earnest, fraternal grasp by the people of America’,” the book’s author Abd-Allah wrote.