Intro
There seems to have been Lahori-Ahmadi’s in California in the late 1920’s. Mirza Daud Baig (the son of Dr. Mirza Yacub Baig) was living in San Francisco in 1927 and even took care of a regular Muslim man named Maulana Barkatullah.
In 1930, The Los Angeles Times of Feb-18-1930 reports that an Ahmadi missioner named Mohammed Basheer was living in Hollywood (Los Angeles area, Southern California) and desired to build a mosque there to serve the immigrant Muslim community. His views on converting non-Muslims are not mentioned, nor is his Ahmadi sectarian affiliation (Qadiani or Lahori). See “Mosque of Islam May Rise Here,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1930, A3 (See Bowen, A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1, White American Muslims before 1975, page 287). This was also reported in the Los Angeles Evening Post Record of Feb-18-1930 (see scan in the below) and Lincoln Nebraska State Journal of 2-27-1930 (see scans in the below). Mohammed Basheer alleges to live at 1723 Whitley Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90028. Interestingly, he mentioned Moorish architecture. This is important because of the connections of the Ahmadiyya Movement and Noble Drew Ali and Moorish Science Temple. Mohammed Basheer also alleged that 100’s of Muslims (Indian’s, Japanese, Chinese, Phillipino’s, Persians, Syrian’s and Egyptians) are willing to work together to get a mosque built. He also alleged that there were 226 million Muslims in the world and that the Koran was translated into 40 languages.
In 1930, Mrs. Augusta Atkinson’s face appeared in the Moslem Sunrise of July-1930. She was mentioned as a donor for the Moslem Sunrise, in the Moslem Sunrise of Oct-1931/Jan-1932, the Moslem Sunrise of Apr-July-1932 and the Moslem Sunrise of Apr/July-1933 (published in Oct-1933). She never appeared in any Ahmadiyya history thereafter. Even Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali had never met her and only posted her photo. Interestingly, Hoffert (Andrew T. Hoffert, “The Moslem Movement in America,” The Moslem World, 20 (1930): 309) tells us that Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman came to the USA to specifically work with the whites and get them to convert to Ahmadiyya. Hoffert claims that there was only 12 white Ahmadi’s in Chicago and 80-90 across the USA (all lies). Hoffert also mentions Mr. G.A. Zandra in Hollywood, California in 1929.
In 1931, a man named Harry E. Heinkel, a white man living in Los Angeles, California, came across a copy of the Islamic Review in his local library.88 At the time, Harry was losing his faith in God, and was teetering on the edge of agnosticism and atheism. He had found the Bible’s stories so incredibly unbelievable and obscene, and Christians’ inability to live up to the principle of “Brotherhood of Man” so disappointing, that he was no longer able to bring himself to adhere to the Christian religion of his childhood.89 The discussions of Islam in the Review, however, piqued his curiosity, and he wrote to the editors to ask for more literature. 90 By early November, after receiving a package of materials from Woking, he became very interested in the religion’s principles, and he sent to the magazine a letter expressing as much, which was later published in the magazine’s correspondence pages.91 By late November 1931, Harry explained in another published letter, he had come to believe—after re-reading the literature Woking had sent, which included a translation of the Qurʾan by London convert Marmaduke Pickthall—in Islam’s five pillars and he wanted to adopt the faith, though he knew of no Islamic mission in Los Angeles that he might join.92 In July and August 1932, Harry had more letters appear in the magazine’s pages, explaining his conversion in more detail and thanking Woking for sending him additional literature.93 Harry had become so popular in the Review that other Americans were contacting him via the magazine. In the summer of 1932, another Los Angeles reader of the magazine, one George Bohn, wrote to Harry, in a letter published in the Review, telling him that Bohn was part of a small group of Muslim converts in the city who wanted to get together with Harry to start an Islamic mission.94 Harry of course replied—in a letter that was, again, published in the Review—that he was eager to do this; and a Los Angeles Sunni Muslim convert community began to blossom (See the Islamic Review of 1932-1933)(See Bowen, A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1, White American Muslims before 1975)(See also the Islamic Review of Jun-July-1932)
The Lahori-Ahmadi’s came into direct contact with the Qadiani-Ahmadi’s in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area in roughly 1935 (after the Great Ahmadiyya Schism). The Lahori-Ahmadi joint secretary K.S. Chaudhri Manzur Ilahi announced in 1936 that he had been in contact with some Muslims and they might have converted to Lahori-Ahmadiyya. Although the extant evidence is somewhat unclear about the issue, it appears that the person responsible for starting the American mission was an African American convert named Saeed Ahmad. Mr. Ahmad seems to have been from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania region and more than likely had previously been involved in one of the several different Islamic sects that had been popular in the region over the previous ten years. According to various accounts, in 1934 the region’s Muslim community, which had recently unified under the Qadiani movement, underwent a major schism, and, due to the efforts of Mr. Ahmad and others, the Lahore Ahmadiyya movement gained a significant following in the region. As a result, over the next dozen years the Lahore-influenced region became one of the main centers of mainstream Islam among African Americans, with its influence spreading across the country.
In the Lahori-Ahmadi newspaper “The Light” on 1943, the Lahori-Ahmadi mission in the USA is discussed. William Phillips, President Roosevelt’s personal representative, visited Lahori representatives in Lahore in February 1943, he was informed that the group currently had no mission in the us nor planned for one in the immediate future. (See “Mr Phillips Sees Anjuman’s Representatives,” Light, March 1, 1943, 8., “Islamic Mission for America,” Light, April 16, 1943, 3., “Islam Mission for America,” Light, May 16, 1943, 3., (See Bowen, A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1, White American Muslims before 1975). Almost immediately after the Light’s editorial came out, an American, whose identity is unknown, wrote a letter—which was published in the Light—to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan’s independence movement, asking that he send a mission to the United States. Interestingly, Nadirah’s November 1943 meeting was not the first time a ‘Webb Memorial’ project was being discussed in the network of white Muslims in wartime America.
Its unclear if the Lahori-Ahmadi’s came into contact with the only Ahmadi mullah in the country, Sufi Muti-ur-Rahman Bengali. The Lahori-Ahmadi mission was officially launched in 1947 when the Lahore representative, Bashir Ahmad Minto, arrived in San Francisco, California and incorporated the Moslem Society of the USA. Mr. Minto quickly went to work, sending out hundreds of advertisements and letters to local and national periodicals, giving dozens of lectures across the state, distributing Islamic publications to all who were interested, raising money to purchase a building, and corresponding and meeting with hundreds of Muslims and potential converts. See Bashir Ahmad Minto, “Muslim in America in Danger of Conversion,” Light, July 24, 1949, 8; The Secretary, “Annual Report of the Muslim Society of u.s.a.,” Light, January 24, 1951, 7; incorporation records of the Moslem Society of the u.s.a., Inc., dated October 28, 1947, on file with the State of California. (See Bowen, A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1, White American Muslims before 1975).
Continue reading “The early history of the Lahori-Ahmadi’s in the USA” →
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