Sudanese Satti Majid more than others founded American Islam’s earliest multiracial mosques

Evidence

Satti Majid (1883–1963), who led groups of Muslim Americans in the 1920s when he advocated on behalf of Yemeni sailors stranded in New York during World War I, had a much greater influence on the development of American Islam. In 1922, he applied to incorporate a benevolent association named the Moslem Welfare Society in Detroit and later established the United Moslem Society in Pittsburgh. His followers in this period included Daoud and Khadija Faisal, who went on to establish the most successful multiracial and multinational Sunni mosque in New York City. In 1927 and 1928, Majid also created the African Moslem Welfare Society in Pittsburgh. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 382

Categorization

• QUESTION: Majid’s role as an African founder of American Sunni Islam, with a following writing to him as ‘Father Sheich of Islam in America,’ complicates the assumption that Islamophobia historically targeted only foreign Arabs — worth chasing the racial dynamics of this early community.