Atlantic Crescent

Building Geographies of Black and Muslim Liberation in the African Diaspora

Alaina M. Morgan

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781469688718
  9781469688701
• eBook ISBN:
  9781469683874
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: 20th Century History

In the period between the twentieth century’s two world wars, Black and Muslim people from the United States, South Asia, and the Caribbean collided across an expansive diasporic geography. As these people and their ideas came into contact, they reignited the practice of Islam among people of African descent living in the United States and the Anglophone Caribbean and prompted them to adopt new understandings of their place in the world. As the freedom dreams of these diasporic communities met the realities and limitations of colonialism and race in the Atlantic world, Islam presented new strategies for combating oppression and introduced new allies in the struggle.
Envisioning the geography and significance of this encounter within what she calls the Atlantic Crescent, Alaina M. Morgan draws on an expansive archive to show how Black and Muslim people imagined, understood, and acted on their religious and racial identities. Morgan reveals how her subjects' overlapping diasporic encounters with Islam led to varied local adaptation as well as common ground to pursue liberation from racial subjugation and white supremacy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: The Serpent That Deceived the World
• Part I: Discourses
• Interlude: Transitions, Crises, and Choices
• Part II: Translations
• Epilogue: The Bow, the Arrow, and the Crescent: Blackness and Islam in the Past, Present, and Future
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index