Review by Choice Review
Gomez's sweeping encyclopedic study traces the history of African Islam in the New World from the earliest days of colonization in the Caribbean and Latin America, through the "killing fields" of the Americas during the slave trade, and into 19th-century North America. He does this through the variant teachings of the Moorish Science Temple of Noble Drew Ali (who tapped into a nearly lost but still existent "lingering Islamic sensibility") and Malcolm X's conversion to orthodox Islam toward the end of his life, which led to a reconnection with both Islam and Africa, "completing the return to the religion of African Muslim forebears in the process." Gomez (New York Univ.) writes from a base of impressive research on topics as diverse as the possible black Islamic contribution to the Haitian revolution and the Bahian revolt in Brazil in 1835, the submerged practices of Islam among residents of the Georgia Sea Islands, and the twists and turns by which Islam reemerged as a religious tradition for black Americans in the 20th century. This sprawling and richly detailed study, necessarily highly speculative at points but always well informed, may well become a classic in the field of African diasporic studies. ^BSumming Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. P. Harvey University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
