Racial classifications shifted religiously, deeming Ottoman subjects Asian not White.

Evidence

A blow to Syrians’ naturalization efforts came in 1910 when the US Census classified people from the eastern Mediterranean as Asiatics. Christian Syrians were now at risk of being racially equated with non-White Mohammaden Turks, Buddhist Chinese, and Hindu Indians—all racial descriptors based in part on a religious identity. Although skin color, hair texture, and facial features allowed some Syrians to phenotypically pass as White, their legal status as subjects of the Muslim Ottoman Empire deemed them Asians. No longer did being classified as Caucasian suffice to qualify as legally White. Syrians now had to prove they were European. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 543

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supplies the reader’s core need: how legal race categories (Caucasian vs. Asian) functioned as religion proxies in naturalization—bridges to Title VII/INA race-national origin discussion.
• QUESTION: Whether Muslim claimants specifically (not Christians from Muslim lands) ever won naturalization, and what post-1965 doctrine does with this.