Journalist (and PanU founder) Omar Mouallem travels to thirteen remarkable mosques and discovers the surprising history of their communities. But what he finds also challenges his own long-held personal beliefs, and even his sense of identity.
In How Muslims Shaped the Americas, Mouallem explores the unknown history of Islam across the Americas, travelling to thirteen unique mosques in search of an answer to how this religion has survived and thrived so far from the place of its origin. From California to Quebec, and from Brazil to Canada’s icy north, he meets the members of fascinating communities, all of whom provide different perspectives on what it means to be Muslim. Along this journey he comes to understand that Islam has played a fascinating role in how the Americas were shaped—from industrialization to the changing winds of politics. And he also discovers that there may be a place for Islam in his own life, particularly as a father, even if he will never be a true believer.
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Winner of the 2022 Wilfred Eggleston Award for Nonfiction
One of the top 100 books of 2021 – The Globe and Mail and Indigo–Chapters
Journalist Omar Mouallem uncovers the surprising history of Muslim communities thriving in the west, challenging assumptions about belonging and identity, in this beautifully written, award-winning book.
Omar Mouallem grew up in a Muslim household, but always questioned the role of Islam in his life. As an adult, he used his voice to criticize what he saw as the harms of organized religion. But none of that changed the way others saw him. Now, as a father, he fears the challenges his children will no doubt face as Western nations become increasingly nativist and hostile toward their heritage.
In How Muslims Shaped the Americas, Mouallem explores the unknown history of Islam across the Americas, traveling to thirteen unique mosques in search of an answer to how this religion has survived and thrived so far from the place of its origin. From California to Quebec, and from Brazil to Canada’s icy north, he meets the members of fascinating communities, all of whom provide different perspectives on what it means to be Muslim. Along this journey he comes to understand that Islam has played a fascinating role in how the Americas were shaped-from industrialization to the changing winds of politics. And he also discovers that there may be a place for Islam in his own life, even if he will never be a true believer.
Original, insightful, and beautifully told, How Muslims Shaped the Americas reveals a secret history of home and the struggle for belonging taking place in towns and cities across the Americas, and points to a better, more inclusive future for everyone.
Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster Date Published: Feb. 6, 2024 Subjects: Nonfiction: Social Science / Cultural Studies / Autobiography
About the Author:Omar Mouallem is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Maclean’s, WIRED, and more. He coauthored the national bestseller Inside the Inferno: A Firefighter’s Story of the Brotherhood that Saved Fort McMurray, and codirected Digging in the Dirt, a documentary about mental health in the Alberta oil patch. In 2020, he founded Pandemic University School of Writing. And in 2023, he released a feature-length documentary about Burger Baron, the popular Alberta restaurant chain, called The Lebanese Burger Mafia. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta, with his family. Follow him on Twitter @OmarMouallem and find him at OmarMouallem.com.
REVIEWS & PRAISE
“Mouallem’s curiosity—about the promise of a global ummah and his personal relationship with Islam—is inviting and engaging. His journalistic style informs, while his spiritual inquisitiveness encourages self-reflection. A necessary meditation on the richness and multiplicity of Islamic history and practice.”— DESMOND COLE, journalist and author of The Skin We’re In
“[A] fascinating . . . almost infallibly instructive read. . . . A testament to [Mouallem’s] journalistic acumen, full of well-chosen and vividly rendered stories. The book is a peripatetic illustration of how many people, often scattered and marginal, practice Islam in the Americas. It’s when he is chronicling the plight of these people that Mr. Mouallem is at his best.”— Wall Street Journal
“[A]s honest as it is urgent. Praying to the West is a thought-provoking book, written in clear prose and from a position of deep empathy and accommodation. It is funny, poignant, and informative. . . . In his travels and ruminations about his faith, Omar Mouallem takes the reader to places seldom considered, and makes them rethink their own relationships to faith. . . . This book is of vital importance to understanding our contemporary world.” — JURY FOR THE WILFRID EGGLESTON AWARD FOR NONFICTION
“A fascinating exploration of the many manifestations of Islam across cultures, traditions, communities, and political lines. . . . Mouallem is masterful in his ability to both embrace what he loves and interrogate the faith he was born into. . . . It’s a refreshing read that shines light on the humanity of Islam through the words, reflections, and lives of its practitioners.”— Quill & Quire
“Absorbing . . . [Mouallem’s] book has made it impossible not to see this faith tradition’s rich complexity.”— BookPage (Starred Review)
“[Mouallem] uncovers a wide variety of stories about what it means to be Muslim—debunking any idea of a monolithic institution—and its influence on culture, politics and religion.”— Toronto Star
“Illuminates Islam in the Americas with glorious care . . . This essential examination of places and faces of the Islamic diaspora ambitiously travels the pre-pandemic world with high-stakes curiosity and professional dexterity.”— Edmonton Journal
“Mouallem performs a daring act of historical excavation and cultural reconstruction of Islam’s history and perseverance as a faith and a community builder in the Americas. Through insightful reporting, masterful storytelling, and exquisite prose, he provides both a panoramic and an intimate view of peoples and sects within a religion often willfully misunderstood and mischaracterized in the West. What a towering achievement this book is and what a gift to have Mouallem guide his readers through its complex and urgent explorations.”— KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE, author of Return and Brown, winner of the Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
“At once a work of historical scholarship, fascinating travelogue, and deeply personal assessment of lost and rediscovered faith, Praying to the West is a balm against the depiction of Muslims as some kind of nefarious monolith. Omar Mouallem has excavated so many buried stories of Islam’s relationship with this part of the world, and in doing so created a timely, vital, and thoroughly readable biography. This is a book that eschews easy answers and generalizations, and the result is both honest and kaleidoscopic.” — OMAR EL AKKAD, Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning author for What Strange Paradise
“Mouallem is one of Canada’s most masterful nonfiction writers and there’s no one I’d rather follow on a journey like this: across centuries, around the world and into intimate corners of family and personal history. With a deep generosity of both intellect and heart, he offers a rich and complex view of Muslim communities, and of his own ever-evolving relationship to the faith.” — RACHEL GIESE, author of Boys: What it Means to Be a Man, winner of the Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
