Islam and ‘Scientific Religion’ in the United States before 1935

Abstract

This article examines the engagement of Islam by a certain family of religious movements, which I term ‘Scientific Religion’, that developed in the United States during the nineteenth century. Not only was Scientific Religion a religious matrix in which Islam was regularly portrayed in a positive light, but also more Scientific Religionists took on an Islamic identity than any other group of Muslim sympathizers. This was due to the fact that, unlike many of the more mainstream liberal religions, Scientific Religion did not rule out the possibility that exclusive commitment to one specific traditional religious identity could be used to promote Scientific Religion values. In fact, the largest and most prominent US Islamic-identity convert groups of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were significantly influenced by Scientific Religion.