"The Early Legacies of
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
and the
Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement
in America"
Patrick D. Bowen
A History of Conversion to Islam
in the United States
3 vols.
Vol. 1 (2015)
Vol. 2
(October 2017)
Topics
• Impacts of
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and
the Lahore Ahmadiyya
Movement in Islam
in the US
• Between 1886 and 1975
• Five distinct periods
First Period
•Alexander Russell Webb
•Started exchanging
letters in late 1886
•Converted to Islam
around 1888
•In 1890s led US’s first
major promotional effort
for Islam
•1910 helped with
revision of
The Teachings of Islam
First Period
First Period
•Thomas Moore Johnson
•Same Theosophical lodge
•Also editor of a magazine
and American president
of HBofL
•March 1887, attempts to
start “Sufic Circle”
•First known Sufi group in
US
Second Period
July 1933, p. 240
Third Period
Third Period
FBI file, 1944
Third Period
Fourth Period
Fourth Period
Fifth Period
The End