Stream now with KPBS+ - A new six-part, three-hour documentary series, AMERICAN MUSLIMS: A HISTORY REVEALED is available to stream nationwide beginning on May 1, 2026
Across six 30-minute episodes, journalists Asma Khalid (BBC), Malika Bilal (Al Jazeera English), and Aymann Ismail (Slate) uncover stories drawn from archives, photographs, and personal histories that place Muslims in key chapters in American history, from slavery and the founding era to the Civil War, early immigration, the Great Migration, and the rise of modern border enforcement. The series expands how Americans understand the nation’s history, not by rewriting the past, but by bringing more of it into view.
The series tells the stories of an enslaved African Muslim who gained his freedom in the early republic; a founding father who imagined Muslims as future citizens; a Muslim soldier who fought for the Union in the Civil War; pioneers who built one of the nation’s earliest mosques on the Great Plains; Black American women shaping Islamic life in 1920s Chicago; and a South Asian migrant caught in the first wave of border policing.
The words of real historical figures are brought to life through readings by actors including David Rasche, Hiam Abbass, Farshad Farahat, and Kamal Khan. Filmed on location across the country at places where American history took shape, from the Great Plains and Chicago to Washington, DC, Civil War battlefields in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the U.S.–Mexico borderlands of California and Arizona, the series links archival evidence to the landscapes where these lives were lived.
Together, these stories show how Muslims have been part of American life from the beginning, navigating exclusion, building cross-cultural solidarities, establishing communities across difference, and working to close the gap between America’s promises and its practices.
EPISODE GUIDGE:
Episode 1: An 1819 portrait of a formerly enslaved African man reveals the presence of Muslims at the nation’s founding.
Episode 2: How Islam figured in debates about religious freedom and citizenship in the early Republic.
Episode 3: A Civil War pension file reveals the story of a Muslim man who fought for the Union.
Episode 4: A Lebanese homesteader recalls the building of one of the first mosques on the Great Plains.
Episode 5: A photograph reveals the rise of Black Muslim life in northern cities during the Great Migration
Episode 6: A federal immigration file opened in 1928 shows how early border laws shaped the Muslim experience in the United States.
Filmmaker Quote:
“America has always been more complex than any single story,” said executive producer Zaheer Ali. “This series brings forward voices that have long been present but rarely centered, showing how Muslims are an essential part of ‘We the People’ at the heart of the nation’s shared history.”
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Credits: Executive produced by Zaheer Ali, Maytha Alhassen ("Ramy"), and Graham Judd ("African American Lives"), AMERICAN MUSLIMS is a co-production between Timestamp Media and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), in association with PBS.
