Watch the films:
ONE: Hidden from History
Even before the United States was founded, tens of thousands of Muslims were already present, captured in West Africa and brought to colonial America in chains. Host Asma Khalid (co-host of BBC’s The Global Story) tells the surprising story of one of these people, a Muslim man named Mamadou Yarrow, who, after 45 years of enslavement, negotiated his way to freedom, bought a house in Georgetown, and had his portrait painted by the famous Revolutionary War artist Charles Willson Peale. Through Yarrow’s story, Asma reveals the little-known story of America’s first Muslims, whose labor helped build the economic foundations of the early United States.
TWO: Muslims at the Nation’s Founding
Did you know Thomas Jefferson owned a Qur’an, or that George Washington enslaved Muslims? In 1805, a Muslim diplomat even broke his Ramadan fast at the White House. Author and journalist (staff writer, Slate Magazine) Aymann Ismail explores these connections from the Library of Congress to Jefferson’s Monticello and Washington’s Mount Vernon. At the Library, he encounters two powerful books: Jefferson’s Qur’an and the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, an enslaved African Muslim brought to America during Jefferson’s presidency. Through them, Aymann uncovers how Muslims were at once imagined in the founders’ vision of religious freedom and simultaneously denied rights because of race and slavery.
THREE: Muslims and the Civil War
Muslims have been present at every defining moment in American history, including the Civil War. Malika Bilal (Senior Presenter, Al Jazeera English) tells the recently discovered story of Muhammad Kahn, an immigrant from Afghanistan who traveled to the United States in 1861, fought in the Union Army, and left behind a 200-page pension file documenting his experiences. While piecing Kahn’s story together, Malika also discovers the stories of other Muslims involved in the conflict. These include Nicholas Said, an African immigrant who fought in the United States Colored Troops, and a senior Tunisian official who wrote to the U.S. government in 1864, urging them to end slavery. This letter made its way to Senator Charles Sumner, a leading abolitionist in the United States, who referred to Islam in his speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
FOUR: Little Mosque on the Prairie
Among the millions of immigrants arriving in the United States at the turn of the 20th century were thousands of Muslims from Lebanon, then part of Greater Syria. In this film, host Aymann Ismail tells the story of two of these people, a woman named Mary Juma and her husband Hassen who homesteaded in North Dakota in the early 1900s. Traveling across the Midwest, Aymann explores how the community that Mary and Hassen founded constructed one of the first purpose-built mosques in the country, keeping their traditions alive while creating a new identity on the American frontier.
FIVE: How Islam Influenced Black Americans in 1920s Chicago
In the 1920s, many Black Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South turned to Islam. In cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York, they joined groups ranging from the Ahmadiyya movement to the Moorish Science Temple and Nation of Islam. Host Malika Bilal traces this history through Florence Watts, who moved to Chicago around 1910 to work as a cook and maid. Inspired by Ahmadiyya missionary Mufti Mohammad Sadiq, she joined one of the first multi-racial Muslim communities in 1923 and appeared in the magazine Moslem Sunrise—among the earliest photos of Muslim women in America. Through Florence’s story, Malika shows how these movements offered Black Americans dignity, global connection, and a lasting legacy
SIX: Unexpected Unions
Asma Khalid travels to Sacramento and Phoenix to piece together the story of a man named Mir Dad, a South Asian Muslim who arrived in the United States in 1917 and made a home in the American Southwest. Asma discovers the prejudice faced by South Asians of all religions traveling to America in the early part of the 20th century and the race-based naturalization and immigration laws that shaped their lives. She also discovers how Mir Dad joined a growing number of South Asian and Mexican American couples who built their lives together in the 1920s and 30s, forming blended communities whose descendants still treasure their mixed heritage today. Includes readings from actors Kamal Khan and David Rasche.