Muslim Americans in the Military: Centuries of Service by Edward Curtis (review)

This very short volume gives a brief history of the Muslims in the U.S. Military. It starts by recounting the Gold Star family that was thrust into the limelight at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and the days following as they were embroiled in a very public brawl with Republican Candidate Donald Trump, in which many commentators wondered if one could be truly American and Muslim. Gold Star Family's are those families that have lost a member in service to the military. Khan's son, Captain Humayun Khan, died June 8, 2004, in Iraq protecting other soldiers from an IED bomb. Curtis gives the reader a short study in courage by describing Khan's final sacrifice in an effort to communicate that Muslims can be brave American soldiers too. Using this vignette as a starting point, Curtis takes us through a series of stories and small biographies from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

In the early years of the nation, history records names that are certainly Muslim, like Bampett Muhammad, and others that might be Anglicizations for Arabic names, like Joseph Benenhaley (Yusuf Ben Ali) for their roles in the Revolutionary War. Curtis acknowledges that we cannot know for sure if these men were Muslims and that the evidence for the impact of their faith on their role in history is scant to non-existent. Curtis speculates that because many slaves came from West Africa, they were likely Muslim, which seems likely. However, to then claim that because these slaves were forced to make contributions to the new nation does not make a contribution to the argument that their faith is part of the fabric from which the nation was made. He overlooks the very nature of slavery in order to advance the message that Muslims contributed to the creation of the nation.

After Independence there were figures that became staples of lore. For example, "Hi Jolly" is a well-known figure in Arizona history, lore, and folksong that has its own annual festival in Quartzite, Arizona. Hadji Ali, which was corrupted to "Hi Jolly," was born to a Greek mother and an Arab father. He was instrumental in creating a camel corps, for use as military transport in the Southwest. What Curtis presents is genealogy and name usage to indicate Hadji Ali's religion. However, the fact this man used the name Philip Tedro when he became a naturalized U.S. citizen can lead the skeptical reader to doubt Tedro's religious background; after all, not all Arabs are Muslims. The wedding photo Curtis includes of Hadji Ali/Tedro does not display something recognizable as Muslim wedding attire to either Muslims or non-Muslims today (p. 14). This, by itself, does not really give the reader a sense of Tedro's religion but it does allow the skeptical reader to doubt the place of Islam in Tedro's contributions to American history.

It isn't until after World War II that evidence of the role of Muslims in the U.S. Military expands beyond lists of names and brief notes. It is unfortunate that there seems to be so little material on the role of Muslims in the first century or so of the United States. Curtis made good use of scant material, but the book would have been strengthened if it had as much depth of biography for the early years of the U.S. military as for more recent years.

Curtis describes the long process by which Muslims came to be recognized by the military in terms of being allowed to self-identify as such on official documents and dog tags, using symbols on military grave markers, having Muslim chaplains, and even wearing headscarves. Sometimes the struggle was caused by an overly restrictive reading of Islam by non-Muslim chaplains. For example, Lt. Col. Shareda Hosein wanted to become the army's first woman Muslim chaplain but was denied this request because the army...