I recently started reading Dune which incorporates Islamic terms such as Jihad and the hero being called Mahdi. The book was published in the mid 60's so how much would have the average American reader known about Islam and how many would have even recognized the terms as being of Islamic origin?
It depends which sect you’re thinking of. Are you focusing on the most dominant sect of Islam (Sunnism), or Islam as a whole?
One thing that’s worth recognizing is that the concept of Islam wasn’t unknown to Americans during the 1960’s. Although they called them “Mahometans”, they were aware of its existence. In fact, our own founding fathers were decently informed about the religion (1).
Funny enough, scare tactics concerning Muslims were even used during the creation of our constitution. Scholars point out that the concern of a Muslim possibly becoming president was genuinely discussed by anti-federalists especially. In other words, Muslims have been a point of discussion in American history since the beginning of our country (2).
For anyone interested in reading more about the subject, I’d heavily recommend A History of Islam in America by Kambiz Ghanea Bassiri. Most of my knowledge concerning Muslims in early America is thanks to him.
With that information cleared up, it’s now appropriate to discuss the 1960’s and how knowledgeable Americans were about Islam.
It’s no shock that Islam grew especially in African American communities. Historian Sammy Howell says it best - “[African Americans] began to embrace Islam in the 1920s and 30s partially in response to the radical dislocations and racism they experienced prior to and during the Great Migration (the movement of disenfranchised southerners to industrial regions in the North)” (2).
The 60’s only promoted this further thanks to the promotion of black power and civil rights. The Nation of Islam and Malcolm X are usually associated with Islam in the 60’s, but they weren’t the first ones - it was actually Marcus Garvey. I’ll reference back to Howell who, once again, says it brilliantly.
“For many, it was Marcus Garvey’s Negro World, the newspaper the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) established in New York in 1914, that first popularized the link between Pan-Africanism and Islam. By 1920 the UNIA had more than 100,000 members and 800 chapters worldwide.”
Garvey took the black community by storm thanks to the ideologies promoted within the organization (Islam included). Malcolm X would simply be the promotion and growth of Islamic ideology in America.
However, a common criticism of the Nation of Islam or other Islamic groups during this time are repeated by people - they didn’t follow the beliefs correctly. While this may be subjective in some people’s eyes, there’s no doubt that they were viewed as separate beliefs from core Islamic ideology. After all, there’s a reason Malcolm X came to denounce the Nation of Islam.
Even with the immigration act of 1965 promoting the immigration of Muslims to the country, Islam at this time was still relatively unknown to the average American. Sure, perhaps a highly educated politician was slightly familiar with the religion, but your average American viewed it in the same manner one might view Zoroastrianism nowadays.
Islam in the 60’s was a byproduct of the African American civil rights movement, and it wouldn’t be until later that Americans gained some sort of knowledge about the religion itself.
PBS holds an excellent series concerning Islam in America. I’d recommend it for anyone who wants extensive knowledge on this topic.
https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/islam-in-america/
Sources:
1 - http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/focus/essay1009_jefferson.html