Voices of Islam (244 page)

Authors: Vincent J. Cornell

BOOK: Voices of Islam

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How often has Dr. Ghazi shared his NOI stories? Did he tell them for the fi time because I appeared interested as an African American Muslim researcher? Or had he passed these stories to his daughter as my parents had to me? Whatever the case because of Islam, South Asian migration narratives emerge inextricably linked to African American history, a history that not only African Americans claim and transmit but also South Asians claim. It is a line of transmission threading a narrative through and between ethnic communities.

CONCLUSION

The voices that I have recorded above demonstrate the diversity of the American Umma. Competing with each other at the same time that they complement each other, these voices represent the making of a distinctively American Islam, the pursuit for racial justice reverberating at its core. Committed to the Umma ideal to overcome race and ethnic divides, these

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Voices of Change

voices inherit a time-honored Islamic cultural dialogue at the same that they contribute something new. As Rami articulated most eloquently, ‘‘It is a lofty ideal’’ but one ‘‘that Muslims have championed’’ for over 1,400 years. Their voices do not represent all in the American Umma and certainly not the voices of American Muslim women. Nonetheless, they provide a window onto understanding the role of race and ethnicity in forging a new chapter in Islam’s vast cultural history. Challenges remain for the next generation of American Muslims. Yet the greater the challenge, the more celebrated their commitment and creativity in making Islam a benefit for all American people, Muslim and non-Muslims, black, white, and immigrant.

NOTES

Marshall G. S. Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization,
vol. 1,
The Classical Age of Islam
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 75.
Bernard Lewis,
Race and Slavery in the Middle East : An Historical Enquiry
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 18.
Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, ‘‘Islam and the Cultural Imperative,’’
http://www. nawawi.org/downloads/article3.pdf, 2004.
Lewis,
Race and Slavery in the Middle East,
18.
Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam
, 78.
Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), 371.
Sylviane A. Diouf,
Servants of Allah : African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas
(New York: New York University Press, 1998), 7.
Maria Rosa Menocal,
The Ornament of the World : How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
(Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, 2002), 75.
Richard Maxwell Eaton,
The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760,
Comparative Studies on Muslim Societies 17 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1993), 280–281.
Richard Eaton states that the emphasis on social equality in Islam is a product of contemporary reform movements. Persian primary sources show that in introduc- ing Islam to Indians, ‘‘Muslim intellectuals did not stress the Islamic ideal of social equality as opposed to Hindu caste, but rather Islamic monotheism as opposed to Hindu polytheism.’’ Richard M. Eaton, ‘‘Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India,’’ in
Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies,
ed. R.C. Martin (Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1985), 110.
Claude Andrew Clegg,
An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad,
1st ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 282.
Author’s notes, 13 August 2002.
Author’s notes, 11 August 2002.
Islam for the People
65
Sherman A. Jackson,
Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 47.
A 1999 study put South Asians at 29.3 percent, Arabs at 32.7 percent, and African Americans at 29.9 percent of the U. S. Muslim population. Fareed Nu‘man,
The Muslim Population in the United States: A Brief Statement
(Washington, D.C.: American Muslim Council, 1992). A 1992 study put African Americans at 42 percent, Arabs at 12.4 percent, and South Asians at 24.4 percent. Ilyas Ba-Yanus and Moin Siddiqui,
A Report on the Muslim Population in the United States
(New York: Center for American Muslim Research and Information, 1999).
Malcolm X,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
371.
Dannin describes how corrupt Ahmadiyya leaders exploited their African American followers by raising membership dues so that immigrant leaders could make trips to India and Mecca. Robert Dannin,
Black Pilgrimage to Islam
(Oxford, U.K.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 39. Dannin’s is the most thorough work on early African American and immigrant encounters and tensions.
The concept of the ‘‘ethnic mosque’’ was theorized in a seminal work in the fi of American Muslim studies: Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Adair T. Lummis,
Islamic Values in the United States: A Comparative Study
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
Zaid Shakir, ‘‘Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, and Blackness,’’
Seasons: Semiannual Journal of Zaytuna Institute
2, no. 2 (2005): 76.
Bruce B. Lawrence,
New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immi- grants in American Religious Life
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 10.
W.E.B. Du Bois,
The Souls of Black Folk,
Bantam classic ed. (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), 1.
Lawrence,
New Faiths, Old Fears,
39.
Jane I. Smith,
Islam in America,
Columbia Contemporary American Religion Series (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 55.
Evelyn Shakir,
Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States
(Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997), 81.
Vijay Prashad,
The Karma of Brown Folk
(Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 94.
See Dannin,
Black Pilgrimage to Islam
.
Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor,
American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation,
1st ed. (Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, 2000), 11–12.

28. Ibid., 184.

I invented the acronym WDM to designate the community and followers of Imam W. D. Mohammed. During the period of my research in Chicago in 2002, his community was named the Muslim American Society (MAS). In the fall of 2002, Imam W. D. Mohammed changed the name from Muslim American Society because an immigrant group also used this name, and he wanted to distinguish his commu- nity. He replaced MAS with ASM, the American Society of Muslims. In September 2003, Imam Mohammed resigned from the ASM to commit to other service and business projects and founded TMC, The Mosque Cares, based in Chicago. Because of the constant name changes and the unclear status of the ASM and its relationship
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Voices of Change
with TMC, I refer to communities and Muslims who affiliate with Imam Mohammed as WDM for consistency. Also, African American Muslims both under and outside of his leadership often refer to his following as Warith Deen Muslims. Previous names include World Community of Islam in the West, the American Muslim Mission, and the Muslim American Society.
Prashad,
The Karma of Brown Folk,
101–102.
Abdullah Madyun, interview with author, 29 May 2002, Chicago, Illinois.
Wali Bashir (pseudonym), interview with author, 10 July 2002, Chicago, Illinois.
Abdullah Madyun, interview with author, 29 May 2002, Chicago, Illinois.
Abidullah Ghazi, interview with author, 26 August 2002, Skokie, Illinois.
‘‘Abidullah and Tasneema Ghazi,’’
http://www.chicagohistory.org/global/ ghazi.html. While this quotation is taken from an online interview with the Ghazis, Dr. Tasneema also talked excitedly about the book in a personal interview with the author.
Talat Sultan, interview with author, 9 September 2002, Villa Park, Illinois.
Sultan Salahuddin, interview with author, 10 May 2002, Chicago, Illinois.
‘‘Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for your Lord knows best who have strayed from His Path and who receive guidance’’ (Qur’an 16:125).
Farid Esack,
Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression
(Oxford, U.K.; Rockport, Massachusetts: Oneworld, 1997), 103.
Madyun, interview with author.
Shakir Lewis (pseudonym), interview with author, 11 June 2002, Chicago, Illinois.
Shakir ignores Hamza Yusuf, a prominent Anglo American Muslim leader, because he disagrees with Yusuf’s ideology.
For more on IMAN, especially its formation, see Garbi Schmidt,
Islam in Urban America: Sunni Muslims in Chicago
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2004).

Author’s notes, 6 April 2002.
Madyun, interview with author.
The Herald Sun
(Durham, North Carolina), 28 August 2003.
Ghazi, interview with author.
Author’s notes, 17 June 2002.
Salahuddin, interview with author.
Mikal Ramadan, interview with author, 6 September 2002, Chicago.
Abdullah Madyun, interview with author, 29 May 2002, Chicago, Illinois.
C. Eric Lincoln, the foremost authority on the Nation of Islam, discusses the import of the timing of W.D. Fard’s appearance in the 1930s, the period of both the Great Depression and the Great Migration, as it relates to the Nation of Islam’s early success among the underprivileged classes. C. Eric Lincoln,
The Black Muslims in America,
3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc., 1994), 11–15, 20–21.
Islam for the People
67
Mattias Gardell,
In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam
(Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1996), 51.
The
Muslim Journal,
the official WDM newspaper, has published articles on both Master Farad (d. 1992) and his wife (d. 2004). Photos of both also confirm their South Asian identity. See
Muslim Journal,
7 March 2003, and
Muslim Journal,
19 March 2004. A number of theories have surfaced regarding the identity of Master Farad Muhammad. See Karl Evanzz,
The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), 397–417; Gardell,
In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam,
50–54; Clifton E. Marsh,
From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Transition From Separatism to Islam, 1930–1980
(Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1984), 106–107; Richard Brent Turner,
Islam in the African-American Experience
(Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1997), 163–166. Evanzz gives the most thorough account. The ethnic identity he ascribes to Farad Muhammad conforms with Imam W. D. Mohammed’s description of him as South Asian.
For more information on the development of Elijah Muhammad’s relation- ship with W. D. Farad Muhammad, see Hatim Sahib, ‘‘The Nation of Islam’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1951), 65–98, 118–150, and Clegg,
An Original Man,
14–40.
Muslim Journal,
7 March 2003.
Clara Mohammed was the fi to hear Master Farad speak and then she inspired her husband Elijah Muhammad to attend his next meeting. See Rosetta