Dar-as-Salam: Muslim Merchants of the Great Lakes
Early on in the New Middle Ages, anti-Muslim sentiment was at a fairly high level. The War on Terror was still a fresh memory, and many blamed Muslims for America's downfall. Most Muslims across the country saw the writing on the wall, and would either convert or flee west to Colorado. Some, of course, stuck it out: they had lived where they lived for generations, and weren't about to leave behind the only life they had ever known: they were Americans, after all, and surely that counted for something.
As it turned out, it didn't count for much. In many cities along the Eastern Seaboard, they would survive as minority communities, perpetually harassed and put upon by the majority, subject to the occasional pogrom. Things were far worse in the interior of the country, and especially in the Great Lakes. Here, an already sizable Muslim community was confronted by a population petrified by early raids from Quebeckers, Canucks, what Evangelist warlords popped up, and the emergent Cowboys.
Thus, as so often happen, a scapegoat was sought and found in the large Muslims populations in the Rust Belt, most prominently in Dearborn, Michigan. Fading memories of 9/11 fueled the conviction that Muslims were somehow responsible for the decline of America, and that their removal could perhaps restore it. The first major pogrom occurred in Dearborn, where an angry mob created from several surrounding communities demanded that the Arab population either convert, leave, or die. The state government, relieved to see public pressure off them, refused to intervene. This act of genocide inspired similar acts across the Rust Belt, and a few others in Eastern America as a whole.
Muslim communities became more ghettoized and more controlled by the local potentates, who used and abused their marginalized status to the best of their ability. Many took the perilous journey West to the fabled lands of Kuluradu, though the odds of making it were about even with dying or enslavement. Others chose to leave the Great Lakes for the Eastern Seaboard, where things were somewhat more tolerant.
The Muslims that remained became tied to the land as artisans and manual laborers, forbidden to own or work the land lest they corrupt it. Any community that grew too prosperous was subject to pogrom; the same happened if a large enough plague or crop failure afflicted the kafirs.
The government of Michigan ran into a problem during one of the last great pogroms against its state's remaining Muslim population. A now muscular Nondenominational Church, once unable and unwilling to stop rogue governors from wrangling together more souls to fill Nondenominational pews, was starting to get uncomfortable with outright conversion by the sword type shenanigans what with the American ideal of freedom of religion. Largely, this shift in policy was due to more sustained and more civil contact between the US and peopls of other religions, and the beginning of an intellectual strain that would attempt to find a role for these differing faiths to play within God's plan for America.
A deal was brokered by the Church between the Muslims and the State Government of Michigan: offer the Muslims the choice of conversion or resettlement to the recently plague-depopulated town of Fruit Ridge and surrounding environs. Here, they would be allowed to work the once prosprous but long-dead apple orchards of the region. If they could supply a hefty tax to the Church and Michigan, they'd be allowed to maintain autonomy in their religious affairs and protection from angry mobs.
Led by the prominent Muqtar family, of Dearborn the Muslims succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Their first harvest was a particularly good one, and the community soon grew prosperous. Satellite communities would pop up throughout the Michigan Fruitbelt, and becoming one of the greatest cider suppliers in the Midwest. The Muqtars are one of the most prominent families in the Lake League and, following the proclamation of the County of Rockland and Non-Denominational Federalism, Islam finally received a government-approved status. The influence of the Fruit Belt Muslims has spread well beyond the Great Lakes, and has provided a common source of identity and institutions for the small Muslim communities of the East Coast. Rumor has it that the Muqtars are even in direct contact with the legendary emirates of Kuluradu.