Year of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
Master of Arts (MA)
Degree Name
History
Department or School/College
Department of History
Committee Chair
Dr. Tobin Miller Shearer
Commitee Members
Dr. Mehrdad Kia, Dr. Phyllis Ngai
Keywords
African American History, American Religion, Ahmadiyya, Chicago, Islam, American Muslims
Subject Categories
African American Studies | History of Religion | Islamic Studies
Abstract
During the early 1920s, an immigrant missionary from colonial India named Muhammad Sadiq established headquarters in Chicago for a branch of Islam called the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam (AMI). The AMI became the first institutional expression of Islam in the United States to draw a significant number of American converts and was particularly popular among African Americans. Following the Second Great Migration, Black migrants to the urban Midwest sought new ways to express their identity, fulfill both spiritual and material needs, and resist racist violence. The AMI became attractive to them as an alternative to respectability politics and drew upon existing currents of Pan-Africanism and Afro-Orientalism. Through its periodical, The Moslem Sunrise, the AMI reinforced the link between Islam and Black liberation—an association that had begun to circulate among intellectuals and activists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This study will contribute to larger scholarly literature on twentieth century African American Islam, emphasizing the role of the AMI in establishing Black Muslim religious, social, and political practice and the Midwest as a nucleus for African American Islamic Revival during the interwar period.
Recommended Citation
Videon, Hazel, "Sunrise in the Heartland: The Ahmadiyya Movement and the Foundations of African American Islam" (2025). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 12445.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/12445
© Copyright 2025 Hazel Videon