In the current debate on Islam and its place in the American society, the Naturalization cases of the early 20th century gain new importance in studying how Islam and Muslims were perceived. According to the Naturalization Act of 1870, citizenship was limited to free white persons of good character, aliens of African nativity, and persons of African descent. Accordingly, Arab migrants seeking citizenship in the early 20th century had to prove their ‘Whiteness’ which was a fluid term based on racial, religious and/or civilizational criteria. It is well established that Christian Arab immigrants utilized their religious background to appeal to the court and assert their whiteness, and therefore, eligibility for U.S. citizenship. The question of how Muslims dealt with their faith in cases of naturalization in the courts is still not clear, due to the subject being understudied. In his research on the structural roots of Islamophobia, Khaled Baydoun compares judges’ differential treatment of Arab Muslims and Arab Christians and argues that, in a period where US citizenship was dependent on the applicant’s proximity to whiteness, such legal decisions built upon Orientalist claims and rendered Muslim immigrants the racialized "other.” Such conclusion is based on eight court cases all involving Arab immigrants, two Muslims and six Christians. This research paper re-examines the role Islam played in the naturalization cases during the early twentieth century by widening the court cases studied to include cases centering on immigrants originating from Muslim countries, including Ottoman lands, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan/India. It examines the courts’ attitudes toward Muslim immigrants seeking citizenship to unveil the extent to which a petitioner’s religious identity impacted his/her eligibility to US citizenship. This paper argues, based on initial findings, that race assumed a more critical role than religion in the court decisions of Muslims. Although Arab immigrants’ Christian faith served as a tool that enhanced their eligibility for citizenship, that does not automatically translate that Muslims were barred from attaining citizenship. At the same time, it does not dismiss the Islamophobia that defined official discourse on foreign and domestic relations. Indeed, the use of antiquated words like “Mohammedan” and “Moslem” demonstrate a distaste for the religious faith and its followers. However, initial analysis of the cases shows that the courts did not weaponize the petitioner’s religious faith during these infamous naturalization cases.