Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots

Description

"In 1960, a Pittsburgh couple hosting a visiting Muslim student from Pakistan took him to what they assumed was an Islamic mosque--but it turned out to be the headquarters of the Shriners' Pittsburgh chapter." --from Al' America

Four out of ten Americans say they dislike Muslims, according to a Gallup poll. "Muslims," a blogger wrote on the Web site Free Republic, "don't belong in America." In a lively, funny, and revealing riposte to these sentiments, journalist Jonathan Curiel offers a fascinating tour through the little-known Islamic past, and present, of American culture.

From highbrow to pop, from lighthearted to profound, Al' America reveals the Islamic and Arab influences before our eyes, under our noses, and ringing in our ears. Curiel demonstrates that many of America's most celebrated places--including the Alamo in San Antonio, the French Quarter of New Orleans, and the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina--retain vestiges of Arab and Islamic culture. Likewise, some of America's most recognizable music--the Delta Blues, the surf sounds of Dick Dale, the rock and psychedelia of Jim Morrison and the Doors--is indebted to Arab music. And some of America's leading historical figures, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Elvis Presley, relied on Arab or Muslim culture for intellectual sustenance.

Part travelogue, part cultural history, Al' America confirms a continuous pattern of give-and-take between America and the Arab-Muslim world.

The rich and surprising tapestry of Arab and Islamic influence on America includes:

• architecture: from the World Trade Center to the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina

• music: from the blues to

• surf music and the Doors

• philosophy and poetry: from the Transcendentalists and Henry James to Khalil Gibran and Rumi

• the food we eat: from the

• ice cream cone to coffee

• pop culture: from P.T. Barnum to the Shriners and Star Wars

• Also features interviews with leading musicians, artists, historians, ethnomusicologists, and scholars of Islam

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