Religions

When Islam spread rapidly after the death of Mohammed it spread both west and east. Today, the Islamic world spreads like a belt from West Africa all the way to Southeast Asia. These bookends of the Muslim world, however, do not view their constituents as fringe Muslims. Timbuktu, Mali in West Africa, analogous to many…

Two of the most volatile countries in the world over the last few decades, largely attributed to strict Islamic regimes, have been Iran and Afghanistan. Instable countries cause emigration which, in this case, has led to significant Afghan and Persian communities in Metro New York. Other Central Asian Muslim groups have been on the rise…

The history of Europe and Islam is long and fraught with war. If not for technologically advanced weaponry that helped Charles Martel stave off the advance of the Moors into 8th century France, Western Europe could have been swallowed into the Umayyad Muslim caliphate. Many centuries later, the Moors were pushed out from Spain and…

For an introduction to Arabs in Metro New York, including more detailed info on Egyptians, Palestinians, and Yemenis, see our last blog. Moroccan Unlike other Arab immigrant populations mentioned in this blog (Yemenis excluded), Moroccans do not have a significant Christian population. Besides a small Moroccan Jewish population in Metro New York, almost all Moroccan…

Arabs have a history in Metro New York that dates back to the late 19th century. Syrians arrived in lower Manhattan with few skills and spread out from New York throughout the country peddling sewing supplies and small tools. Arab-run textile factories abounded in places such as Paterson (known as Silk City) and West Hoboken,…

The days of New York cabbies with strong New York accents are gone. These days, Mohammed is New York’s most common cabbie name, and up to half of all New York cabbies come from South Asia. Bangladeshis Reflective of their surging population over the last two decades, Bangladeshis have the highest percentage of taxi drivers…

A majority of the peoples listed in our one million Muslim population list are from countries that are predominantly Muslim. There are three exceptions. The Indian group is one of these (which will be covered in the forthcoming South Asian blog). The other two are Hispanics and African-Americans. Strolling through predominantly African-American neighborhoods like Harlem,…

On my last blog, I looked at different estimates of Muslims in the United States, and more specifically, the New York metropolitan area. My estimate for Muslims in Metro New York is one million, which is larger than the population of cities such as Baltimore, Washington D.C, and Boston! My estimates are based on a…

The Muslim population is on the rise in the United States. While the percentage of Americans that identify as Muslims is still small, their influence has grown steadily in the last couple of decades. According to a Pew 2015 study, 1% of people in the U.S. are Muslim, which totals around 3.3 million Muslims in…