Muslim Thought

Written by Danish S.

We apologize for the delay in posting this but pray it will still be of benefit.

As we get ready to release some of our much anticipated content, we thought it was critical that we not let the opportunity pass to post some thoughts on this historic and momentous conference that took place this past weekend in Philadelphia, PA. The theme of the conference was “The State of the Blackamerican Muslim Community” and it was nothing short of amazing.

Scholars that we often see at a number of different conferences were all gathered in one place - Dr. Sherman Jackson, Imam Zaid Shakir, Imam Johari Abdul Malik, Dr. Ihsan Bagby, Imam W.D. Muhammad, and of course Imam Siraj Wahhaj (the Amir of MANA) just to name a few. Alhamdulillah I was blessed to attend the conference and benefit from the number of highly focused workshops and lectures that took place.

Though I probably do not have the time or space here to give a detailed analysis of each and every session that took place, I do want to provide a summary of a few brief but very important points that I strongly feel all Muslims in America need to learn and internalize if they plan on residing in America for any length of time. Before we delve into those points I want to add that it was great to see the support of several non-Blackamerican leaders like Dr. Esam Omeish (President of MAS), Br. Rashid Khan (Ameer of ICNA), and of course Br. Altaf Husain (who is actually a part of the MANA Diwan). I’m sure I probably missed some others so if anyone has other individuals that should be included, feel free to leave them in the comment section below.

The first and foremost point that I feel that Muslims in America need to internalize, no matter what your stripe or background, is that as Muslims we owe a great deal to the Blackamerican community - whether Muslim or not. Just like many of the speakers pointed out during the conference, the benefits from struggles and sacrifices of many Blackamerican forerunners in American history are being reaped by immigrants today, particularly the Muslims.

This point is hardly acknowledged in the immigrant Muslim community. It maybe the American raised generation from immigrant families have a little better appreciation of it but at the end of the day, most of our major Muslim organizations don’t reflect this in their respective institutions and take it for granted. How else do immigrants enjoy many of the luxuries and freedoms of their lives in America? Certainly they never find these same privileges “back home”. Yet most immigrant Muslims not only forget this but they’re not even sure what to do with the freedoms when they reach America! If this fact was better appreciated, then we would be able to accept with the second point I will mention below.

The second point that everyone should be aware of is the Blackamerican Muslim community is an invaluable asset to the entire Muslim Ummah. Surprising as it may sound to some, it’s undoubtedly true. Dr. Jackson often points this out in his speeches and in his written works like his most recent book “Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection”. The Blackamerican Muslim community has come a long way in the past century - from unorthodox to immigrant emulators to modern Muslims - there has been no shortage of the stripes or types of Muslims you can find in the Blackamerican community. Why is this something positive?

To begin with, it illustrates that Islam and Blackamerican are intimately familiar with one another. Immigrants have always thought this is because Blackamericans are historically predisposed to Islam (i.e., Islam stayed in the black community from the time of slavery). While this fact may have a small tinge of truth, Dr. Jackson brilliantly proves in his book that is largely untrue. In fact, from the 8 to 10 Million slaves that were imported to the Western world from Africa, only about 40,000 were Muslims. Even then these Muslim slaves were not able to spread Islam amongst the masses of slaves due to several external factors.

The mass acceptance of Islam amongst the Blackamerican community surprisingly occurred early in 20^th century when figures like Elijah Muhammad and Drew Ali compelled many Blacks to join their ranks in a fight against White supremacy and racism. Part of their success lay in the appropriation of Islam to the Blackamerican community via Black Religion. Essentially the core values found in Islam like equality of races, genders, and social justice served as motivating factors for many to join the ranks of their Blackamerican Muslim Brothers. Combine that with the historical context of Islamic resistance to all forces deemed “evil” and you had a perfect ensemble of elements these charismatic figures needed to rile the emotions and win over the hearts of many Blackamericans. This also explains the very unorthodox approach and practices of these early Blackamerican Muslims indicating that these leaders had virtually no exposure to traditional Islamic texts and practices. Thus, only the basic concepts and core values were adopted. Immigrant Muslims will boast that Islam is all inclusive and that it is a “thinking man’s religion” so doesn’t this fact about how Islam spread amongst Blackamericans prove just that?

Thirdly, Blackamerican Muslims hold the key to formulating a unique Muslim American identity. In fact, Blackamerican Muslims had established a path to form a new Muslim identity that is until the immigration wave of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. It is this wave that would forever change not only the makeup of the Muslim community in the country but also how Islam was defined and recognized amongst American society and the world over. Fast forward to today and many of the same dogmatic principles dominate Muslim discourse around the globe as they did in the mid to late 20^th century in America - that is all issues foreign. Issues that are not a priority or even particularly relevant to the American scene are often the focus of Islamic conferences, TV specials, and even interfaith dialogue in America! Whether it is Pakistan’s politics or the problems of an Arab monarch, none have contributed to establishing a meaningful Muslim identity in the U.S., much less any resolutions to ills plaguing American society. Not much explanation is needed when we say that such an identity and influence is needed in the American scene since it is this society that is actively influencing the rest of the world - especially the majority Muslim countries.

Lastly Blackamerican Muslims are a living example of Islam indigenized in America. One of the biggest fears of immigrant parents when landing in America is “How do I prevent my kids from becoming Americanized?” The reality for these parents is you don’t. On top of which it makes absolutely no sense to expect otherwise.

Unfortunately for many immigrants, American culture has become a representation for everything wrong in the world. So the assumption here is if their children adopt the same culture, they will be lead astray (or more practically speaking is that these kids will lose their parents culture). Though no ethnic group or culture is perfect (one of the primary goals of this past conference was to address the growing number of problems in the Blackamerican Muslim community), it astounds me until today why immigrant parents never seriously look at Blackamerican Muslims to see how they’ve adopted Islam into their American lifestyles. Sure not every detail will fit like a glove but it’s ridiculous to see immigrant Muslims trying to reinvent the wheel about what is and is not Islamically acceptable in a society and culture they are largely unfamiliar with. Does it not then behoove the Muslims to unconditionally support Blackamerican Muslims seeing that they are a living example of Islam indigenized in America?

These are a few brief but important points I would encourage all my fellow Muslims to give serious consideration. In no way is this even a significant list of the many lessons derived from the MANA conference (I encourage others to post more in the comments). There are of course many more specific points that need to be posted and if time permits, Insha’Allah, I will make an effort do that.

MuslimThought will continue support the mission of MANA as part of our goal to establish the elusive Muslim American identity and culture.

For more information about MANA, please visit www.mana-net.org