Early Syrian Muslims passed as Christians to enter the United States
Evidence
“Many Syrian Muslims sought to pass as Christian in order to be more easily accepted into the United States and to circumvent Ottoman regulations which forbade the emigration of Muslims.” — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 654
Categorization
- XREF: Direct evidence for the survival-by-passing dynamic that the naturalization chapter’s ‘white by law, Muslim by fate’ argument depends on. — connects to: Lighter skin and Christian identity secured citizenship privileges that darker or Muslim Arabs lacked; Citizenship in America has historically been tied to whiteness and Christianity
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 654