Dr. Fraser Rahim provides a comprehensive depiction of the Gullah/Geeche low country life, past, present and future. These descendants of enslaved African have been able to make a significant contribution in helping to shape and establish the diverse American identity.

Imam Earl El Amim, Institute of Muslim American Studies

In this first comprehensive study of the Gullah/Geechee Muslim community, Muhammad Fraser-Rahim has written a deeply personal and historically rich monograph of Islam’s evolution and adaptation in the low country communities of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Drawing on historiography, oral history and rich analysis of primary sources, Fraser-Rahim provides a compelling narrative of the deep roots and cultural residue of Islam, shaped first by Centuries of indigenization in Africa and then by the unique black diasporic cultural traditions that emerged from the experience of slavery. This ‘double heritage’ of Gullah/Geechee Muslims is woven through generations of low country communities and manifests into the present. Fraser-Rahim has written a concise, readable book that deepens our understanding of the rich Gullah/Geechee community and the evolution of African American Islam.

Krista Johnson, Howard University

In Gullah/Geechee Muslims in America: Exploring Islamic Identity in the African Diaspora, Fraser-Rahim explores the origins and evolution of Islam in Gullah Geechee culture, framing this history through the lens of trans-Atlantic forced migration that delivered millions of kidnaped Africans to the Americas. Unique and significant in Fraser-Rahim's work is his emphasis on Islam and its development in post-emancipation and contemporary Gullah-Geechee society. The book offers valuable historical grounding for scholars and general readers desiring a fuller understanding of Islam in early West Africa and its exportation through the Middle Passage across the Black Atlantic. Notable as well in this work is Fraser-Rahim's use of early original texts in Arabic that takes us closer to the sources for accounts of the engagements between Arabs and West Africans that brought Islam into this area of the continent.

Elizabeth J. West, Georgia State University