Description
Book SynopsisMuslims have been shaping the Americas and the Caribbean for more than five hundred years, yet this interplay is frequently overlooked or misconstrued. Brimming with revelations that synthesize area and ethnic studies, Crescent over Another Horizon presents a portrait of Islam’s unity as it evolved through plural formulations of identity, power, and belonging. Offering a Latino American perspective on a wider Islamic world, the editors overturn the conventional perception of Muslim communities in the New World, arguing that their characterization as “minorities” obscures the interplay of ethnicity and religion that continues to foster transnational ties.
Bringing together studies of Iberian colonists, enslaved Africans, indentured South Asians, migrant Arabs, and Latino and Latin American converts, the volume captures the power-laden processes at work in religious conversion or resistance. Throughout each analysis—spanning times of inquisition, c
Trade Review
Crescent Over Another Horizon deftly traces the intricate connections between Muslims and Islamic institutions in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Latina/o United States...this volume is an important and timely contribution to the study of religion in the Americas, relevant to both specialists and all scholars interested in the mutual constitution and contingency of religion, ethnicity, and identity. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *
Crescent Over Another Horizon counteracts the tendency to locate Islam in the othered spaces of a nebulously constructed 'East'...Although the book operates across multiple scales and temporalities, its constituent parts mostly succeed in conveying Islam's dynamism in the regions under study. * H-Net Reviews *
Crescent Over Another Horizon is a compelling and timely text. A critical resource for scholars and the general public alike, it not only challenges the exclusion of the Americas and Caribbean from Islamic scholarship but also demonstrates that understanding the historical and contemporary complexity of the Americas and Caribbean must include Islam. Both a resource and a provocation, it is a text that will undoubtedly set the standard for research to come. * Reading Religion *
[A] welcome addition to the growing but still relatively sparse literature on Muslims in the Americas...should be on the bookshelf of any reader wanting to learn more about the activities and histories of Muslims...this collection will inspire further study of Islam's half-millenium presence in the New World. * New West Indian Guide *
[Crescent over Another Horizon questions] the supposed dichotomies between Islam and an idea of the West, rhetorically constructed in opposition to an idea of the East and Islam...a new geography is sought throughout the volume in which place does not frame who individuals are supposed to be but is the space from which one relates to the world. * Latin American Research Review *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Latino America in the Umma/the Umma in Latino America (John Tofik Karam, María del Mar Logroño Narbona, and Paulo G. Pinto)
- Part I: Reconsidering History
- Chapter One. "De los Prohibidos": Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America (Karoline P. Cook)
- Chapter Two. African Rebellion and Refuge on the Edge of Empire (John Tofik Karam)
- Chapter Three. Ethnic and Religious Identification among Muslim East Indians in Suriname (1898–1954) (Ellen Bal and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff)
- Part II. Contemporary Cartographies
- Chapter Four. Institutionalizing Islam in Argentina: Comparing Community and Identity Configurations (Silvia Montenegro)
- Chapter Five. Conversion, Revivalism, and Tradition: The Religious Dynamics of Muslim Communities in Brazil (Paulo G. Pinto)
- Chapter Six. Guests of Islam: Conversion and the Institutionalization of Islam in Mexico (Camila Pastor de Maria y Campos)
- Chapter Seven. Cubans Searching for a New Faith in a New Context (Luis Mesa Delmonte)
- Chapter Eight. Muslims in Martinique (Liliane Kuczynski)
- Chapter Nine. Forming Islamic Religious Identity among Trinidadians in the Age of Social Networks (Halima-Sacadia Kassim)
- Part III. Islam Latina/o
- Chapter Ten. Dis-covering a Historical Consciousness: The Creation of a US Latina/o Muslim Identity (Hjamil A. Martínez-Vázquez)
- Chapter Eleven. Mapping Muslim Communities in "Hispanicized" South Florida (Mirsad Krijestorac)
- Chapter Twelve. Double-Edged Marginality and Agency: Latina Conversion to Islam (Yesenia King and Michael P. Perez)
- Conclusion
- List of Contributors
- Index
