Some very interesting tidbits of OTL information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States
In 1790, the South Carolina legislative body granted
special legal status to a community of Moroccans.
Abdu-l-Rahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori (a.k.a. Abdul-Rahman) was a prince from West Africa who was made a
slave in the United States.
In 1826, Abd al-Rahman Ibrahim wrote a letter to his relatives in Africa. A local newspaperman,
Andrew Marschalk, who was originally from New York, sent a copy to Senator
Thomas Reed in
Washington, who forwarded it to the U.S. Consulate in
Morocco. Since Abdal-Rhaman Ibrahim wrote in
Arabic, Marschalk and the U.S. government assumed that he was a
Moor. After the
Sultan of Morocco Abderrahmane read the letter, he asked President Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay to release Abd al-Rahman Ibrahim. In 1828, Thomas Foster agreed to the release of Ibrahim, without payment, with the stipulation that Ibrahim return to Africa and not live as a free man in America.
Small-scale migration to the U.S. by Muslims began in 1840, with the arrival of
Yemenites and
Turks,
[41] and lasted until
World War I.
Ross, North Dakota is the site of the first documented mosque and Muslim Cemetery, but it was abandoned and later torn down in the mid 1970s. A new mosque was built in its place in 2005.
[37]
Ross is a city in
Mountrail County,
North Dakota in the
United States. The population was 97 at the
2010 census. Ross was founded in 1902 and is the site of the first, established mosque in the United States.
- 1906 Bosnian Muslims in Chicago, Illinois, started the Džemijetul Hajrije (Jamaat al-Hajrije) (The Benevolent Society; a social service organization devoted to Bosnian Muslims). This is the longest lasting incorporated Muslim community in the United States.
1934 The first building built specifically to be a
mosque is established in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
1945 A mosque existed in
Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest
Arab-American population in the U.S.
and by 1952, there were over 20 mosques
Historically, Muslim Americans tended to support the
Republican Party.
I am amazed at Ross being the first Mosque as it is in the middle of the continent (actually, Rugby, ND is).
The Southern Yemenite population is most curious. Where they
because of trading and poor contitions locally? A large population to
this day in Niagra Falls/Buffalo NY.
If there was substantial immigration at one place, then a small,
quiet community would have come about. Note the slave prince in
the above. Soon as he moved back, as well as his son, they
died of disease. The US is a good place to become comfortable in,
and it is unlikely much waves would have had been made, especially
considering the erratic history of Muslims during the TL, not the
most fortunate period of the group (you and I would have been
glad to escape lower Italy in 850, probably). Dark age of sorts.
Also, the average southern person was skeptical of differing persons,
maybe because of the higher indentured servant rate and patronage
systems. But enough high breed men, especially in Virginia, existed
to defend, that a colony of size might have been made in the
peidmont region. Not many people came from South Eastern
Europe during the first half of US history, though.