WI: Muslim Utah

I have in mind a TL, but I'm curious to hear some opinions before I devote any time to it. Suppose, during the Second Great Awakening, a Joseph Smith type discovered George Sale's translation of the Quran, perhaps the very copy that Thomas Jefferson had donated to the Library of Congress. Styling it the "Last Testament", he used it as the basis of a new religious movement, "The Church of the Prophet", which took the burned-over district by storm. Though highly Americanized, the Muslims were distinct enough to invite persecution. Soon they were forced to migrate west, arriving eventually at the Great Salt Lake. Here they prospered in isolation, despite occasional scuffles with Christian settlers and the persistent hostility of the federal government. After the Church agreed to abolish "Islamic marriage" and accept secular courts of law, the U.S. government granted statehood to Utah, in which Muslims formed a large majority of the citizenry. Gradually the leadership of the Church brought its idiosyncratic doctrines into line with Sunni orthodoxy, and Salt Lake City became the center of Islam in the western hemisphere. By the 20th century, a large swath of the American west was known as the Muslim Corridor.
 
I don't think that they would bring the church into orthodoxy with Sunni Islam. I mean it's not like Nation of Islam has been made into orthodox believers through the access to better material. Especially not the Sunni mainstream given how Sunni Islam is non hierchical in its organization, which I suspect any Muslim Mormon church wouldn't want to adopt. If I had to define what they'd look a lot like I'd say an extremely heterodox Sufi-Shiite brotherhood would be more likely.
 
I don't think that they would bring the church into orthodoxy with Sunni Islam. I mean it's not like Nation of Islam has been made into orthodox believers through the access to better material. Especially not the Sunni mainstream given how Sunni Islam is non hierchical in its organization, which I suspect any Muslim Mormon church wouldn't want to adopt. If I had to define what they'd look a lot like I'd say an extremely heterodox Sufi-Shiite brotherhood would be more likely.

I imagine the official church charting a pragmatic revisionist course, based on a desire to gain new members and establish a robust relationship with the international Muslim community, just as in OTL the LDS church has employed continuous revelation to abandon inconvenient and embarrassing oddities and thereby build up its ecumenical respectability. Perhaps the Utah Muslims find themselves shut out of Mecca, and the church decides to revise certain doctrines in order to obtain safe passage for its pilgrims. At each point, such revisions will cause minor schisms, resulting in a bunch of independent fundamentalist Muslims scattered throughout the west, practicing polygamy and operating illegal sharia courts in defiance of the Salt Lake authorities.

The mention of Sufism is interesting. I certainly see the Utah Muslims retaining a lot of unusual dogmas and mystical doctrines while nevertheless conforming to a fairly mainstream outward praxis.
 
I imagine the official church charting a pragmatic revisionist course, based on a desire to gain new members and establish a robust relationship with the international Muslim community, just as in OTL the LDS church has employed continuous revelation to abandon inconvenient and embarrassing oddities and thereby build up its ecumenical respectability. Perhaps the Utah Muslims find themselves shut out of Mecca, and the church decides to revise certain doctrines in order to obtain safe passage for its pilgrims. At each point, such revisions will cause minor schisms, resulting in a bunch of independent fundamentalist Muslims scattered throughout the west, practicing polygamy and operating illegal sharia courts in defiance of the Salt Lake authorities.

The mention of Sufism is interesting. I certainly see the Utah Muslims retaining a lot of unusual dogmas and mystical doctrines while nevertheless conforming to a fairly mainstream outward praxis.

I don't really see them trying to conform to the standards of Muslims very far away, I see them trying to conform to the standards of modern Americans and trying to remain acceptable among the people they share a country with rather than a mainstream from several thousands of miles away that they have no reason to listen to. And as far as I know embracing Sunni Orthodoxy would mean disestablishing the actual church. Which I just don't see them doing. That and I just think the idea of a heterodox Sufi Sect from the Americas sounds more interesting than a unique and interesting thing comes into existence only to slowly fall into mainstream islam but remain somewhat different even then.
 
On reflection, you're probably right. They would be totally isolated from all other Muslim communities, and even their international endeavors would be likelier to involve Christian countries in Europe and South America.

In principle, how plausible is the idea itself? Would an Islam-based movement conceivably appeal to antebellum Americans? I figure it wouldn't be much weirder to contemporary sensibilities than was Mormonism, and like Mormonism it could emphasize the figure of Jesus in order to appeal to Christians. At the same time, it could play up the orientalist romance, and so appeal to the restless and adventurous.
 
Oh I think that the idea itself is fine, I mean if I can accept Male Risings beginning I can accept a muslim Joseph Smith.
 
Would an Islam-based movement conceivably appeal to antebellum Americans? I figure it wouldn't be much weirder to contemporary sensibilities than was Mormonism, and like Mormonism it could emphasize the figure of Jesus in order to appeal to Christians. At the same time, it could play up the orientalist romance, and so appeal to the restless and adventurous.

I agree. It would not be very much wierder to conteporary American sensibilities as LDS, and in fact might not be as demonized because, instead of being a "heretical cult of people who claimed to be Christians but really weren't", Americanized Muslims would be seen as adherents of completely different faith, in the same way Jews were. Jews were tolerated, Mormons werent. However, the best bet for these hypothetical 1840's Muslims would be to lie low, blend in, and not advertise themselves by evangelizing to Christians or trekking westward to form a distinct religious homeland.
 
A very interesting concept you have here. One thought I had is that, considering how willing the OTL LDS Church has been to move the geographical center of their religion, most especially after they were driven out of Missouri, they might end up establishing a new center for pilgrimages entirely: a New Mecca, which they would declare either supercedes the holiness/authority of Mecca, or precedes it. Perhaps their sect of Islam would retain the idea of Jesus' mission to the Americas, or maybe even Jesus and the Mahdi both (assuming they swing more to the Shia side of things), and the site of their pilgrimage has a significance in their traditions.
 
An offshoot of Islam is less likely to attract converts in the US than an offshoot of Christianity (Mormonism). All of the new religious movements in early America was in the tradition of Christianity. Islam was seen as alien to that tradition and had lots of cultural baggage, and was seen as heavily despotic which is a huge turnoff in American culture.

Most likely, this heretical Islam cult stays very small and never gains a large following. Most likely it ceases to exist a few decades after its founder dies.
 
Suppose, during the Second Great Awakening, a Joseph Smith type discovered George Sale's translation of the Quran, perhaps the very copy that Thomas Jefferson had donated to the Library of Congress.

Another thing to consider is that so much of Islam is OUTSIDE the Quran. Smith wouldn't have access to the hadith, various schools of Islamic jurisprudence, wouldn't know which sections of the Quran invalidates the other section because there is no way to know which sections were recited later rather than earlier.

Unlike the Bible, the Quran is very confusing because there isn't an obvious structure to it. The Bible is organized to tell a story. The Quran is organized roughly in order of decreasing size of texts. Arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation or of topic.

He would also likely have no understanding of the history of Islam and how the actual religion developed as a result of specific events such as who would succeed Mohammed as Caliph, the wars associated with that, the development of the split between Sunni and Shia. The list is endless.

The "Islam" that comes out of Joseph Smith would be a very, very different Islam than it actually exists. It would probably be unrecognizable. As soon as any real Muslim immigrates to the US (or even Middle Eastern Christians who do recognize what real Islam is like), the Church of the Prophet will be excluded from being called Muslim. At best, you may have a situation where the Church of the Prophet is considered to be an offshoot of Islam like the Druze and Alawites are.
 
On reflection, you're probably right. They would be totally isolated from all other Muslim communities, and even their international endeavors would be likelier to involve Christian countries in Europe and South America.

In principle, how plausible is the idea itself? Would an Islam-based movement conceivably appeal to antebellum Americans? I figure it wouldn't be much weirder to contemporary sensibilities than was Mormonism, and like Mormonism it could emphasize the figure of Jesus in order to appeal to Christians. At the same time, it could play up the orientalist romance, and so appeal to the restless and adventurous.

Actually, it *would* be much weirder. The US had an history of Christian sects so one more in the mix isn't that unusual since they might have odd beliefs but are still Christians.

Trying to make people who were raised Christians switch to a system that downgrade Jesus from the son of God and personal lord and saviour to that of prophet that play second fiddle would be a bit harder. Not impossible but you might not see the same numbers especially since, unlike Nation of Islam, the religion is not linked with ethnicity.
 
I have in mind a TL, but I'm curious to hear some opinions before I devote any time to it. Suppose, during the Second Great Awakening, a Joseph Smith type discovered George Sale's translation of the Quran, perhaps the very copy that Thomas Jefferson had donated to the Library of Congress. Styling it the "Last Testament", he used it as the basis of a new religious movement, "The Church of the Prophet", which took the burned-over district by storm. Though highly Americanized, the Muslims were distinct enough to invite persecution. Soon they were forced to migrate west, arriving eventually at the Great Salt Lake. Here they prospered in isolation, despite occasional scuffles with Christian settlers and the persistent hostility of the federal government. After the Church agreed to abolish "Islamic marriage" and accept secular courts of law, the U.S. government granted statehood to Utah, in which Muslims formed a large majority of the citizenry. Gradually the leadership of the Church brought its idiosyncratic doctrines into line with Sunni orthodoxy, and Salt Lake City became the center of Islam in the western hemisphere. By the 20th century, a large swath of the American west was known as the Muslim Corridor.

Unlikely for two reasons. First, the Koran by itself isn't going to get you something that looks much like Islam on many points. Second, the greater the distance between the target religion and the religion of the pre-converts, the harder conversion usually is, and Mormonism is closer to mainstream Christianity on a functional level than something derived from the Koran would be. This is especially true in the early days of Mormonism--it wasn't until Nauvoo and especially the Utah period that Mormons started becoming more divergent from the mainstream. Since an America/Utah based faith is mainly going to be converting in Christian areas, being able to plausibly present themselves as a Christian variant is going to be important.

Edit: I see these points have already been made. So, what those guys said.
 
An offshoot of Islam is less likely to attract converts in the US than an offshoot of Christianity (Mormonism). All of the new religious movements in early America was in the tradition of Christianity. Islam was seen as alien to that tradition and had lots of cultural baggage, and was seen as heavily despotic which is a huge turnoff in American culture.

Most likely, this heretical Islam cult stays very small and never gains a large following. Most likely it ceases to exist a few decades after its founder dies.

I don't really see how Islam would be any weirder than the LDS church, which while it did keep up rhetoric of being a christian church most everyone who wasn't a member considered them an entirely seperate faith anyway, so clearly a convert already had to jump over the barrier of it not being very much like what he's used to anyway.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Speaking as a Mormon myself, it'd be very unlikely that a Muslim Utah (or an alt-Mormonism based on Islam) could exist, for reasons mentioned by others in this thread.

Now a Mormonism featuring Islamic beliefs would be a lot more likely; Joseph Smith was already called an "American Muhammad", and he either hated that reputation or embraced it, depending on who you asked. So Smith learning more about Islam and embracing some of it's tenets for Mormonism would be much more likely.
 
What if you actually did have an early Nation of Islam as a liberative religion for slaves, led by Frederick Mohammed Douglas?
 
if you want to get a Muslim-majority Utah, your best bet is really to just take the conditions that resulted in a large Muslim population in Michigan and apply that to Utah, maybe scaling it up further
 
What if you actually did have an early Nation of Islam as a liberative religion for slaves, led by Frederick Mohammed Douglas?

Maybe he takes a pre Civil War trip to one of the many Muslim West African nations and is inspired by the spirituality, taking it home with him as a solution to his people's problems. Granted the Islam of West Africa is a totally different beast from the Islam of the Middle East in many ways starting with the syncretic elements and practices (same thing is the case with African Christianity too for the most part) but it's still recognizably Muslim as opposed to whatever Joseph Smith comes up with.

Personally if it was up to me I'd rather do a TL where Frederick Douglas is a Houngan leading a Voudon revival in the South (mostly cause what part of Frederick Douglas the Voodoo-slinging militant abolitionist would NOT be cool?) but it could be doable although I don't know enough about the man himself to really say what specifically would be necessary to facilitate that kind of change.

The Ottoman Empire is one I would recommend staying away from for the purposes of this WI though; there's plenty of stuff about the Empire in the early to mid 19th century that would turn Douglas off to Islam that wouldn't be as much of an issue if you're talking West Africa. One easy possibility is a trip to Liberia followed by an expedition to Mali and back.
 
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