“Apple Pie”

If there is one fundamental cultural icon in America today, it is apple pie. But why? Where did apple pie come from? What makes it “American”?

Long before Homo sapiens roamed the planet, there was the apple. Some Christian depictions of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden show an apple as the fruit Adam and Eve ate.

The apple wasn’t the fruit in the Garden of Eden, but it is a fruit indigenous — millions of years ago — to an area of the planet we now know as Kazakhstan. Yes, that 70% Muslim country and former Soviet republic is the ancestral home and cradle of civilization among apple trees. The origin of apples lies in the heart of the Tien Shan mountains, where “forests of wild apples, some growing at 10,000 feet, others in 1,300-foot-deep canyons, show a wealth of diversity and resistance to disease and pests” (Cornell University).

As people began to travel west, they brought apple seeds with them, and the fruit eventually found its way to Europe.

Upon the settling of the Americas, there were no apples in the Western Hemisphere. Early settlers had to rely on shipments from Europe while their planted seeds began to grow.

The first cultivation was in Jamestown in 1607, but those apples were so bitter they were not for eating. They were only good for making cider. Instead, the colonists were more likely to make meat pies.

Thousands of years of cultivation created a large array of species in many shapes, colors, and sizes. In the American colonies, countless orchards sprang up, and apple trees began a dramatic genetic diversification. John Chapman (1774–1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed, made it his life’s quest to supply many states with new seedlings.

By the eighteenth century, apples used in pie began to become a popular dessert in America, and they remain so today.

It is evident that the apple is woven into the fabric of America. The apple, which predated the country by millions of years, has been among us since the beginning — at first in bitter form. Its presence has served us, been cultivated by us, and become a positive contributor to our culture and society.

Likewise, Islam has been woven into the fabric of our society and culture from the beginning. Not as a recent arrival, but as a thread present from the founding. Enslaved African Muslims were among the earliest people brought to these shores — men like Bilali Muhammad of Sapelo Island, who wrote in Arabic, prayed five times a day, and fasted during Ramadan while laboring on a Georgia plantation. Islam did not immigrate to America. It was dragged here in chains.

Similar to the first bitter apple the colonists tasted, the presence of Islam in America has often been met with suspicion — something foreign, something to reject. But like that bitter apple, it has been cultivated, shaped by the soil it grew in, and become part of what this country is.

Like the apple, once planted by colonists in an ecosystem where no apples existed, Islam too was planted here where it had not existed. It is, and will forever be, what we make of it together. You can choose to help Muslims make a positive contribution to a society they love and have been part of for over two centuries. Or you can stand against something that is already woven into the ground beneath your feet. Either way, Islam, like the apple, is here to stay. It is not here on probation. It is not awaiting permission. It belongs.

Islam is as American as apple pie.

The instruction is ancient, and it is clear:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” — Matthew 5:43–48