I would highly recommend this text for those searching and craving knowledge in regards to the development and growth of Islam in North America. I read this text as a main source for a paper and found it to be highly informative. It focuses on the question of what is pure islam and who practices it. It uses the Sunni faith as a barometer to gauge 5 Islamic sects found in the United States. These sects are the Druze, the Ahmadiyya Community, the Ansaru Allah Community, the Moorish Science Temple of America and the United Submitters International. The authors, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Jane Idlemand Smith show the background, history, and place each sect occupies within mainstream Islamic society. It is very insightful and a must read for anyone who has an interest in Islamic issues.

As the numbers of Muslims resident in the United States and Canada increase, they also become more diverse. Just how diverse becomes apparent in this tightly edited volume in three sections. Part one deals with religious communities (Shi'is, Nation of Islam, and others); the second with cities major (Los Angeles) and minor (Rochester); and the final with a miscellany of issues (Bektashis, elderly Muslims, attitudes towards women's employment, and so forth).

Muslim Communities in North America contains fascinating subject matter, much of it novel. For example, Yusuf Nuruddin tells of an little-known but startling group, the Five Percenters, who broke away from the Nation of Islam in 1964 under the leadership of the improbably named Clarence "Pudding" 13X. With due understatement, the author describes his immersion in the Five Percenters' theology as "a visit to another world where normal rules of logic are suspended."

The book's only serious problem lies in its occasional apologetic quality. Thus, Matthias Gardell makes the preposterous argument that Louis Farrakhan's reputation for demogoguery, reverse racism, and anti-Semitism results not from his own rhetoric and actions, but from "misunderstanding and disinformation."

Middle East Quarterly, December 1994