Background about Islam and U.S. Muslims

Muslims are a faith-based group that follow the tenets of Islam, a monotheistic religion with overlapping histories and traditions with the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity and Judaism. Muslims believe in one God, angels, all prophets through Muhammad, including Adam, Jesus, and Moses, divine books included the Torah, Gospel, and Quran, and the Day of Judgment. Practicing Muslims build their worship upon 5 basic pillars: the testimony of faith, prayer, zakat/charity, fasting, and pilgrimage. Among Muslims, there are varying levels of practice and different theological traditions including Sunni, Shi’i, and Ahmadi (This and other information can be found on Yaqeen Institute’s “Basics of Islam” webpage).

Conservative estimates suggest there are about 1.9 billion global Muslims and Muslims are 25% of the global population (from the report, The Future of the Global Muslim Population). Among them, there are an estimated 3.5 million Muslims in the United States, now accounting for about 1.1 percent of the total U.S. population, according Pew Research’s “Demographic Portrait of Muslim Americans.” Others estimate that there are millions more U.S. Muslims, but the U.S. census does not collect data on religious affiliation, meaning that no definitive number is available.

U.S. Muslims are diverse in many ways, including immigration status, ethnic identities, religious practices, U.S. experiences, and personal values. For example, about 58 percent are foreign-born whereas 18 percent are first-generation, 28 percent are second-generation, and 24 percent are third-generation or more (Cooperman, 2017; Lipka, 2017). In fact, although mainstream narratives often conflate Muslim with being “foreign,” Muslims have a longstanding history in the United States (Ghanea Bassiri, 2010). There are scholarly disputes, however, about exactly how far back to date Muslim presence in the United States. Some scholars argue that going as far back as nearly two centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived in America, Muslims sailed back and forth to America. Some even argue that Muslims were part of the crew of Christopher Columbus (Smith, 1999)….By the late 1500s Muslim sounding names (such as Hassan, Osman, Amar, Ali and Ramadan) started appearing in official colonial documents (Curtis, 2009). There is considerably more evidence of forced migration of West African Muslims as part of the slave trade (Ghanea Bassiri, 2010) (Khan & Siddiqui, 2017, p. 46).

Despite this long presence of Muslims in America, Islam failed to survive the first generation of its arrival until the twentieth century. Reasons include, but are not limited to, enslaved Africans not being permitted to practice their faith and the inhuman practice of breaking up families through sale; fierce anti-Islamic sentiment; some migrants only included men coming for work or employment (Khan & Siddiqui, 2017, p. 47).

In modern times, Muslims in the United States have continued to experience discrimination and Islamophobia. According to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), Islamophobia is defined as “anti-Muslim bigotry and discrimination based on an irrational hatred and ‘fear’ of Islam,” to be distinguished from critical inquiry or criticisms about Islam.

The causes of Islamophobia are also the subject of debate, most notably between commentators who have posited an increase in Islamophobia resulting from the September 11 attacks, the rise of the militant group Islamic State, other terror attacks in Europe and the United States by Islamic extremists, those who associated it with the increased presence of Muslims in the United States and in the European Union, and others who view it as a response to the emergence of a global Muslim identity (Islamophobia, Wikipedia).

Muslim Philanthropic Traditions, Organizations, and Social Justice

 Key aspects of philanthropy in Islam include zakat and sadaqah.

As one of the Five Pillars of Islam, zakat is a religious duty for all Muslims who meet the necessary criteria of wealth to help the needy. It is a mandatory charitable contribution, often considered to be a tax. The payment and disputes on zakat have played a major role in the history of Islam, notably during the Ridda wars. Zakat on wealth is based on the value of all of one’s possessions. It is customarily 2.5% (or 1⁄40) of a Muslim’s total savings and wealth above a minimum amount known as nisab each lunar year, but Islamic scholars differ on how much nisab is and other aspects of zakat. According to Islamic doctrine, the collected amount should be paid to the poor and the needy, Zakat collectors, orphans, widows, those to be freed from slavery, old-aged peoples who can’t work to feed themselves, those in debt, in the cause of Allah and to benefit the stranded traveler (Zakat, Wikipedia).

‘Sadaqah’ literally means ‘righteousness’ and refers to the voluntary giving of alms or charity. In Islamic terminology, sadaqah has been defined as an act of “giving something…without seeking a substitute in return and with the intention of pleasing Allah.” Examples of sadaqah include:

• To administer justice between two people
• To remove harm from a road/removing thorns, bones and stones from paths
• A good word
• Every step taken towards prayer
• Guiding the blind
• Supporting the weak with the strength of your arms
• Smiling at others (Sadaqah, Wikipedia)

As mentioned earlier, the first large presence of Muslims in America resulted from the forced migration of enslaved Muslims from West Africa. There is no evidence that Islam was able to survive slavery despite 10 percent of slaves being Muslims But, there is evidence about how Islam affected African American traditions including that certain slaves sought to practice their faith, including almsgiving. For example, enslaved Muslims in Georgia are reported to have collected small quantities of rice every day from the rice paddies. They would also save small quantities of sugar from their rations. These Muslim Georgian women would then make a saraka cake. These cakes were given to children to eat. It is argued that the word saraka comes from the Arabic word sadaqa….One can see how significant these saraka cakes would have been in the difficult lives of the children of slaves. Not having money, the women did the only thing they could to continue to keep alive the charity that their faith asked of them. The situation that they were in influenced the nature of their philanthropy (Khan & Siddiqui, 2017, p. 51).

U.S. Muslim nonprofit institution building has largely been focused on navigating and expressing religious identity through philanthropy. U.S. Muslim charitable giving has been important in establishing religious institutions that further their faith, religious identity and place in American society. There are over 1200 mosques and 230 full-time Islamic schools in the United States….Philanthropy has further been used by Muslim Americans to help create a unique U.S. Muslim identity through the establishment of professional organizations, to fight for their civil rights by founding advocacy organizations and to give to Muslims living in developing countries through relief organizations (Khan & Siddiqui, 2017, p. 50-51).

According to the article, Behind the data: Examining why US Muslims give less to religious institutions and causes, following 9/11, many U.S. Muslim nonprofits faced various forms of scrutiny, including government secret surveillance, raids, and freezing of assets, without clear evidence to demonstrate that these nonprofits provided material financial support of terrorism, and in many cases, no indictments were put forth (Khadar & Siddiqui, 2018). Although there was an expressed fear of giving among some Muslims in the context of heightened scrutiny, this article and other studies have indicated that Muslim individual giving to institutions shifted in a post 9/11 era, with a decline in giving to religious congregations and diversification into a broader category of secular causes. Further, in the Muslim American Giving 2021, researchers found that “Muslims gave a guestimate of 4.3 billion USD,” with a higher average donation to secular causes and religious congregations among Muslims when compared to non-Muslims (Siddiqui & Wasif, 2021).

Muslims have also furthered social justice through philanthropy. Religious motivations for social justice are found across various religious texts and traditions, including an anti-racist plea in Muhammad’s final sermon: “There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a non-Arab over an Arab, and no superiority of a White person over a Black person or of a Black person over a White person, except on the basis of personal piety and righteousness.” U.S. Muslim organizations like the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative have adopted this anti-racism philosophy into their missions to further social justice. Initial studies also indicate that U.S. Muslim donors have expressed interest diversity, equity, inclusion measures at nonprofits. For example, a Give.org 2022 donor trust study U.S. Muslim donors expressed a strong interest for diverse representation among an organization’s board and staff in relation to giving.  Another dimension of giving may also be linked to the racialized identity of U.S. Muslims, where many U.S. Muslims experience marginalization or some form of discrimination based on being perceived as “other” (Guerrero et al., 2022). The overall racialized identity of U.S. Muslims may help to explain why U.S. Muslims are more likely than other Americans to give to faith-based and secular civil rights organizations—organizations where individuals represented have a linked fate to U.S. Muslims (Wasif, Paarlberg, Siddiqui, & King, 2023).

Bibliography of sources

Guerrero, F., Bergdoll, J., Paarlberg, A., Martin, M., & de Leon, E. (2022). Contributed Responses to Give.org Donor Trust Special Report: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance. https://www.give.org/docs/default-source/donor-trust-library/2022-dei-dtr-report-contributedresponses_final(web).pdf

Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. (2023). Islamophobia. https://www.ispu.org/public-policy/islamophobia/

Khader, R., & Siddiqui, S. (2018). Behind the data: Examining why US Muslims give less to religious institutions and causes. Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society, 2(1), 42–56. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326423252_Behind_the_Date_Examining_Why_US_Muslims_Give_Less_to_Religious_Institutions_and_Causes

Khan, S., & Siddiqui, S. (2017). Islamic Education in the United States and the Evolution of Muslim Nonprofit Institutions. Edward Elgar Publishing. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License and with permission from the authors.

Pew Institute. (2011). The future of the global Muslim population.  https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/

Pew Institute. (2017). Demographic portrait of Muslim Americans. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/

Siddiqui, S and Wasif, R., Muslim American Giving 2021. October 2021. Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/32235367-58a0-4155-b2bc-b1718ddf4216/content

Wasif, R., Paarlberg, A., Siddiqui, S., & King, D. Racialized minorities, discrimination, and support for civil rights: Assessing support of civil rights amongst Muslim-Americans and Jewish-Americans. Unpublished Conference Paper, Presented at ERNOP 2023.

Yaqeen Institute. (2023). Basics of Islam. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/what-islam-says-about/basics-of-islam

Wikipedia. (2023). Islamophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike International License 4.0, additional terms may apply

Wikipedia. (2023). Sadaqah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaqah. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike International License 4.0, additional terms may apply

Wikipedia. (2023). Zakat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat. Wikipedia text is available under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike International License 4.0, additional terms may apply

Original content for this book written by Afshan Paarlberg. Text compiled and edited by Genevieve Shaker, Afshan Paarlberg, and Anita Anglade.