AHC: Earliest possible Muslim member of US Congress

Conceivably you could have one as far back as Reconstruction. There were a reasonable number of Muslim slaves taken to the Americas, and a few who kept the faith going even after a couple generations in bondage. Have a little more of that survive, and/or a greater emphasis on reengaging with those roots after emancipation, and voila! Muslims in the ~1870 US South.
 
I think somebody on these forums suggested a scenario where a significant number of Americans convert to Islam during the Second Great Awakening. Maybe one of the converts gets elected to Congress.
 
There was a small amount of Muslim immigration from what was then the Ottoman Empire beginning around 1840. If these immigrants begin to establish cohesive ethnic enclaves then you could start seeing Muslim Representatives around 1920.
 
Perhaps there could be a famine in Rumelia some time in the early 19th century somehow leading to sizable emigration to the United States and you could get a population with enclaves electing their own representative.
 
My nominee is Hadji Butu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadji_Butu elected in alt-1916 from the Mindanao and Sulu congressional district...

How would he serve? Do you mean the Philippines get US Congress representation?
I think somebody on these forums suggested a scenario where a significant number of Americans convert to Islam during the Second Great Awakening. Maybe one of the converts gets elected to Congress.

Would be interested to see the quoted post.
 
How would he serve? Do you mean the Philippines get US Congress representation?

Obviously it's the POD. Not a likely one, I acknowledge, but it's the only land under the US flag as of the early twentieth century to have a large Muslim population.
 

Kaze

Banned
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran...so... it could in theory, with some real stupid ASB, as soon as the formation of the US. But, in reality I would say after a good sized Muslim population arrived in the Americas - so I would say sometime after the US Civil War.
 
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