Criticism included, I'm thankful that Mr. O'Driscoll took the time to check out the film and write about it.   I agree with many of his comments, especially regarding the possible confusion viewers might experience when watching segments about the Moorish Science Temple and Ahmadiyah.   Unfortunately, while conducting early interviews I still didn't determine who my target audience was: people who have some background knowledge about the history of Islam in America, or those who have none at all.   In the end, I landed somewhere in the middle, which didn't always lead to the highest degree of clarity.  

The review also mentioned the lack of information about immigrant Muslims prior to the 70s in the film.   That definitely wasn't intentional, and there was some attempt made to address that.   We do know that there were many immigrant Muslims in Pittsburgh prior to the 70s.   In some unused footage Ahmed Riyadh mentions a couple Palestinian brothers in particular, though not by last name, and of course there's significant time spent to discuss the contributions of Yousef Khan.   All that said, there was no real (known) attempt by early immigrant Muslims to establish institutions here similar to First Muslim Mosque.   Abdul Mawgoud Dardery in another unused segment theorized that this was because immigrant Muslims never experienced being a minority in their own countries, so the need to really establish organizations was not felt, since many issues could be handled amongst a few community members.   Because of that, and at least in my research for this project, traces of immigrant Muslim communities prior to the 70s were almost non-existent - though we know they did exist, especially with the number of Palestinian, Syrian, and Turkish immigrants who came here in the early twentieth century.   Many early immigrants also failed to see the importance of maintaining an Islamic identity, again since the idea of being a minority was new; 'back home' it is just assumed that if one is a Muslim, his/her sons and daughters will carry on that tradition with equal fervor, not really taking possible cultural assimilation into account.

I don't think any hour-long film can really do this history justice.   I tend to view the film more as a starting point for those curious or seeking a general overview; sister Sarah Jameelah has been working on rewriting her book recently, which should lead to an even more thorough examination of Islam's history in Pittsburgh.   There's more stuff to be dug up.   As my first project though, and as one that was largely a one-man effort, I'm pretty happy with the results.   It was a learning experience, and this review gives me a heads up on what mistakes to look out for while working on my next project.

Go back to home.