Native-born and immigrant, Black, white, Latino, Asian and Indigenous: American Muslims come from every background and every walk of life.
Islam in the United States cannot be reduced to one race or one migration story. American Muslims include families with centuries of history, people whose parents arrived from every continent, and native-born men and women who freely chose Islam after study and reflection. They are teachers, veterans, artists, doctors, tradespeople, parents, students and neighbours in every part of the country.
Boxer & humanitarian
Refused the Vietnam draft on conscience; a global voice for peace and dignity.
Country
United States
Muslims
About 3.45 million Muslims
Share
1.1% in Pew's 2017 estimate
Landmark
Statue of Liberty · New York
Muslim history in America includes early West African scholars, later communities built by African Americans, migration from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and generations of converts with no immigrant background at all. White, Black, Latino, Indigenous and Asian Americans have all contributed to a distinctly American Muslim identity. No single group owns that story, and no stereotype can contain it.
View statistical sourceAmericans encounter Islam through many routes: reading the Quran, friendships, university, travel, family, questions about God, or the example of a Muslim colleague. Men and women from every racial, social and professional background accept it. What joins them is not ethnicity but conviction: one Creator, direct worship without intermediaries, personal responsibility, mercy and equality before God.
"We have sent you but as a mercy to all the worlds." — Qur'an 21:107
Positive contribution
Muslims in United States contribute to the whole society — in service, scholarship, sport and charity.
From Muhammad Ali's conscientious objection to Malcolm X's pilgrimage to Makkah, American Muslims helped frame the struggle for human dignity as a moral, not merely political, cause.
Zaytuna College, founded by Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir, became the first accredited Muslim undergraduate college in the United States, part of a wider growth of Islamic scholarship in the West.
American Muslim doctors, engineers and researchers serve in hospitals, universities and NASA, contributing to a tradition of learning that Islam has honoured for over a thousand years.
Muslim Americans serve in Congress, in city halls, in the military and in humanitarian relief, working for the common good of their neighbours.
Documented journeys
1942-2016, Sunni Muslim from 1975
Boxer and humanitarian
His changing religious journey shaped his stand against the Vietnam War, his public identity and decades of humanitarian work.
Read the full story
Accepted Islam in 1968
Basketball champion and author
Study during his university years connected Islam with a search for spiritual conviction, history and an identity he had chosen for himself.
Read the full story
Accepted Islam in the 1980s
Mathematician and author
An American mathematics professor who approached the Quran with the objections of an atheist and found that it addressed his questions directly.
Read the full story
Accepted Islam in 1977
Scholar and educator
Raised in a Greek Orthodox and Catholic environment, a near-fatal accident began a search that led him to study Islam in several countries.
Read the full story
Accepted Islam in 2000
Actor
Raised Christian, he encountered Islam through friendship, worship and the experience of prayer while studying acting.
Read the full storyDifferent languages, different cultures, one message. Explore more countries or read the Qur'an for yourself.
