American Muslim organizations actively assimilated into the postwar Protestant-Catholic-Jew consensus

Evidence

American Muslims’ history demonstrates Herberg’s point, as well as the dynamic nature of American antagonism toward Islam, very clearly. Apart from the Nation of Islam, major American Muslim organizations during this period also sought to assimilate their religious community into the national consensus. The Federation of Islamic Associations of the United States and Canada, which began forming in 1952, stated in its constitution that it sought to “point out the common grounds, beliefs, and common ends which other religions share with Islam,” and urged its member associations “in this age of international strife and unrest … [to] draw on the spiritual, moral, and intellectual wealth of the Moslem civilization and contribute their proper share in the establishment of world peace.” — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 283

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s core project: the exclusionary ‘triple melting pot’ serves as a baseline against which American Muslims were cast as permanently foreign. — connects to: US Zionism’s political base shifted from liberal Democrats to the Christian Right — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 687; Islam organizations were US allies before the 1979 Iranian Revolution — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 389