When news spread in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish periodicals in the 1890s about gatherings of new converts to Islam in cities like Liverpool and New York there was immediate excitement coupled with a significant level of skepticism about the “orthodoxy” of those who claimed to be Muslims. ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Ilahai al-Tabrizi al-Ahari (dates unknown), inspired by the news of the American Islamic Propaganda (AIP) led by Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb (1846-1916), visited Webb in New York in 1893. After returning to Egypt, he published al-Islām fī Amrīkā (1893; later translated into Ottoman Turkish as Amerika’da İslamiyet, 1894). Al-Ahari promoted the work of AIP and sought to galvanize the Muslim world to aid Webb’s efforts to spread Islam in America. A few years later, Yusuf Samih Asmay (d. 1942), a Turkish scholar and journalist living in Cairo, traveled to Liverpool to evaluate the Liverpool Muslim Institute (LMI) founded by William Henry Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932). In stark contrast to al-Ahari’s glowing appraisal, Asmay expressed grave concerns about the health and reputation of Islam in England after observing the LMI and Quilliam. Shortly after returning to Cairo, he published Liverpool Müslümanlığı (1896). Thus, inspired by rihlah (travelogue) literature tradition, these two traveling scholars embarked on a mission to acquire knowledge about the authenticity of these fledgling communities of converts to inform fellow Muslims about their co-religionists outside the Muslim world. While the two travelers expressed similar observations, their conclusions and optimism about the spread of Islam differed considerably. This paper compares the two travelogues published in the 1890s, which are the earliest known lengthy appraisals by fellow Muslims of the convert communities. It argues that al-Ahari’s naivety clouded his judgment of Webb’s character. Additionally, his overconfidence in his knowledge of American culture and society also hindered his assessment of Webb’s ability to persuade the American public of Islam’s superiority over Christianity. In contrast, Asmay was more astute because of his investigative approach. His negative appraisal of Quilliam and the LMI reveals a critical mindset that allowed him to correctly predict the downfall of both. The two works and their authors demonstrate the increasing connectivity, transnational encounters, and global entanglement of Muslims in the late nineteenth century during the age of steam and print.