Full assimilation in antebellum America demanded converting away from Islam

Evidence

The experiences of Jews and Catholics after World War II, as I describe in chapter 4, demonstrate that assimilation for Muslims is likely to entail the secularization and Protestantization of Islamic practices. Thus the first to be accepted into America’s newfound Abrahamic national identity (should it actually occur) will be the White-presenting Secular Racial Muslims. Whitepresenting Religious Muslims who Protestanize how they practice will also fit in the Abrahamic faith tradition, making them either White or honorary White. The least likely to be accepted into an Abrahamic national identity is the Religious Dissident Muslim, whose Orthodox lifestyle, combined with staunch opposition to US government policy in Muslim-majority countries, clashes with Anglo-Protestant assimilationist pressures and the national ideology of empire. Even a White-presenting phenotype is insufficient for the Religious Dissident Muslim to gain full acceptance into the national identity. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 979 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A Muslim slave was recommended as a Christian missionary to Africa — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 136; The going-Muslim trope denies assimilated Muslims any genuine integration into America — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 608; Secularization and Protestantization of practice is the price of Muslim assimilation into America — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 979 (+5 more)

Related

• Secularization and Protestantization of practice is the price of Muslim assimilation into America (similarity 0.89)
• Assimilationist Muslims seek to expand US national identity from Judeo-Christian to Abrahamic (similarity 0.87)
• Assimilation demands on Muslims require abandoning Islam itself, not just privatizing it (similarity 0.86)
• Religious expansion to Judeo-Christian framing was a precondition for immigrant Whiteness (similarity 0.83)
• The going-Muslim trope denies assimilated Muslims any genuine integration into America (similarity 0.83)
• US religious freedom has always been conditioned on conformity to Anglo-Protestant norms (similarity 0.82)
• African Muslim slaves preserved Islam until Protestant abolitionism pulled them into Christianity (similarity 0.82)
• Black Christian conversion could not buy the citizenship rights that assimilation granted European immigrants (similarity 0.82)
• Religion unified American identity while race divided it (similarity 0.81)
• Islam’s racialization dates to American slavery, not modern immigration debates (similarity 0.80)
• Europeans saw enslaved African Muslims as semicivilized aids for Christianizing other Africans (similarity 0.80)
• A Muslim slave was recommended as a Christian missionary to Africa (similarity 0.80)
• Religious assimilation granted Whiteness, but phenotype permanently blocked non-White converts (similarity 0.80)
• The Ahmadiyya Movement converted thousands of African Americans to Islam in the 1920s-40s (similarity 0.80)
• When Islam itself is deemed the problem, assimilation demands its excision. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Secularization and Protestantization of practice is the price of Muslim assimilation into America #corroborates (0.88) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 979
• Christianity was the non-negotiable core of civilized status in the antebellum Americas #corroborates (0.85)
• Forced Christian conversion extinguished Islam among enslaved African Americans #expands (0.82)
• Antebellum American attitudes to Muslims were elastic, not fixed #qualifies (0.75)
• Assimilationist Muslims seek to expand US national identity from Judeo-Christian to Abrahamic #qualifies (0.72) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 974