Muslims were part of America’s story long before the republic began

Muslims were woven into both America’s founding population and its labor force, writes a scholar of Islam on the nation’s 250th anniversary.

By: Iqbal Akhtar, Florida International University, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: June 30, 2026

Words: 1,253

Last Updated: 3 weeks, 2 days ago

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By Iqbal Akhtar, Florida International University

In the 1520s and 1530s, a man named Esteban de Dorantes, known as Estevanico, walked across the deserts of what is now Texas, New Mexico and Arizona – decades before the English founded Jamestown in 1607 and a full century before the Pilgrims reached Plymouth in 1620.

Born in Azemmour, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, he had been enslaved and taken to Spain and then across the ocean. In …

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