The think the majority of Black Muslim Americans are not like this. I was at ISNA East Zone in Baltmore and I saw quite of a few Black Muslims. The ratio was probably around 1 to 5. For every 5 non-Black Muslims there was 1 Black Muslim. Which was the same of Arabs as well. Also, if you take Zaytuna seminars you will also so a large percentage of the students being Black Muslims probably due to Imam Zaid’s presence.

I think the only organizations and institutes that have yet to reach out to the Black Muslim community would be ICNA, MAS and AlMaghrib. I’ve to every ICNA-MAS conference in the pas 5 years and the Pakistani/Arab attendance has always outnumbered the Black Muslims by about 25 to 1. While at ISNA conferences it’s not as bad. I’ve taken 2 seminars with AlMaghrib (Both in New Jersey) and the ratio is around 100 to 1.

You would think that this means there are not a lot of Black Muslims in America, but the fact is Black Muslims make up the largest percentage of Muslims in America at around 33%.

So the question is…Where are they?

Ingrid Mattson is Canadian.

I believe that the issues you’ve raised here are extremely important but they are also complex. I worry that it is difficult to adequately address them through such forums and the misunderstandings often created or maintained through such communications can contribute to these problems rather than solving them if not handled carefully. For background on the serious issues involved a must read is Dr. Abdul-Hakim Jackson’s work “Islam and the Blackamerican.” (Although I don’t necessarily endorse his solutions, his analysis of the background and history is extremely important.) I also recommend Amer Haleem’s cover article in the current issue of AlJumuah magazine, which goes through one perspective of some of the history of the immigrant community here in America. I think more research and work should be done on that topic because I think people have a general sense that they know the history of the immigrant Muslim community in America but especially for the younger generations that didn’t live through it our perspectives might be skewed by current realities. Also, I will say that there is a certain “trickiness” to talking frankly about some of that history which can feed into views like that expressed by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, although I disagree with his views. I know no one wants to play into talking points of our Islamophobic enemies, but if all the major Muslim organizations really were originally founded by people associated with or sympathetic to various branches of the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon, then we should not try to hide that fact but should explore what the real truth of those associations was. And if such groups are now led by people completely independent from those organizations and even by people who do not subscribe to the methodologies of those organizations then we should be clear about that as well. Covering up such issues will always lead to conspiracy theories and to the idea prevalent in many immigrant led masjids for a variety of reasons (some related to this, some not) that there is a true inner circle of the masjid that outsiders cannot really reach or understand and that what is said in private is different from what is said in public. Even if this is for good reasons, this leads inevitably to “suspicion” and then people are uneasy about what is said publicly even when nothing is being hidden. Of course, post 9/11 persecution of Muslim charities and organizations for foreign affiliations has made this problem a more difficult one.

Finally I have noticed that certain groups, especially ICNA in my experience and all of the major groups to some extent have noticed this issue for some time and have made attempts to address it (which is why I agree with Amad that it is no conspiracy). However, when problems have their roots deep in the socio economic and historical realities of a country (as racial divisions do in this country and as immigrant divisions sometimes do between different immigrant groups) than it takes much more than just a realization by leadership elites that something is a problem…such realization often only results in a kind of “tokenism” which often results in feelings on all sides being worse than ever before and in a perverse way often solidifies such divisions. To make real change it requires a major commitment to really understanding the issues involved and committing to taking necessary steps to address them. It does not result from pretending the issues don’t exist but really taking the time to understand the issues and explore what would be necessary to address them.

Two last bullet points: MANA is one of the most hopeful attempts to address these issues that we’ve seen for a while.
A lot of these issues,especially when it comes down to why you see audiences for certain ‘conventions’ or classes dominated by one group or the other are deeply rooted in class issues. As John Edwards says, there are two Americas and there more than two Muslim communities in America and I mean that not with regard to minhaj or madhab issues, but with regard to the day to day realities that different people face. The world looks a lot different if someone is a struggling new immigrant in the inner city or if someone is a comfortable upper middle class immigrant or child of immigrants in the suburbs or is someone is a struggling Blackamerican or Latino in the inner city.

Allaah knows best.

Amad it is a topic, I just don’t want us to assume Abdur-Rasheed was somehow the cause of what has been discussed privately for a long time in the BAM community and then find ourselves or others casting the blame on one man who said what many are afraid to say.

Here is another one of my findings; of the ‘good’ and successful BAMs I am interveiwing from all over the country, most of them don’t even attend any mosque or interact with GEN II Muslims at large so certainly the stories told are not truly indicative of real BAM sentiments. There is a whole swathe of people who are not being heard and would surprise many if they were. One eighty-five year old brother who watched Imam WD Mohammed and Siraj Wahhaj rise analyzed BAMs this way; “the good and bad of it today is that BAMs are seen for the leadership they produce or don’t produce and that is a bad yardstick now”.

We should talk sometime. Email me.

It’s an old topic but I think it stems from the world of BAMS not having an identity. IMMs already have a culture that is related to Islam (look at the Arabic words in Urdu for example) and have no trouble adhering to it. But BAMS either go the way of BET or white America or follow Desis or Nation of Islam and it’s mutant sects. BAMs are the “misfits” and don’t fit in so naturally…they attack the other groups.
Identity issues in other words, little different from the plight of Native Americans

Culture is important because its like a barrier that unites people with common religious beliefs, socio-economic status, education, language etc.
AlMaghrib for example is meant for IMMs who have money to spend because they’ve established themselves whereas BAMS come from difficult lives.

But generally I think this topic along with COUNTLESS others comes from not staying occupied. In other words, we blog too much and make issues out of ones that are so tiny they would’ve been forgotten eventually. Whoever these BAMs are that started this discussion simply don’t have anything better to do than rant!! :P

This problem will disappear as time goes on and Muslims forge an identity not too different from the “Native” identity we forged in Muslim countries. In other words, we’ll create a unique brand of North American culture for Muslims. It’s already started to a point with Muslims building shrines to Sufis: http://muslimology.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/1st-muslim-tomb-shrine-in-north-america/

I imagine in time Muslims in the West will be as mixed as the Muslims in places like Afghanistan or Guyana where there are many different ethnic groups, united by Islam, Insha Allah!

Also, we should not be so quick to automatically assume that “BAMs” come from such horrible, impoverished, conditions.

We need to start inter-marrying!

haha

Bro. Ahmad, I wasn’t implying that YOU were saying that blacks were all impoverished. It’s just a popular myth I want to correct. Also, I don’t remember which post it was (maybe about hijab?), but I do remember that you did try to correct the person that made the response. That is why I specified that it was a response, not an actual post. The fact of the matter remains that so many immigrant communities have subtle, and many times not so subtle racist attitudes, many stemming from their native cultures. Then many of them come over here where racism is commonplace and they continue to practice it.

The immigrants that sell haram might be a minority, but if those are the only ones that inner city Muslims come into contact with, they will associate that action with that particular people. There are many angles to the problem. The situation with blacks in America is a complex one. It is one that I don’t think the immigrant community as a whole is willing to take the time to understand. Honestly, I’m not sure that it should be expected that IMs would take the time needed to comprehend it.

It is also a myth that black people have no culture besides “BET”. It is that kind of thinking that I witness all the time. People do not respect our culture, or think that it is the low class behavior that we see on television. Many people do not accept us unless we take on the traits of their culture. Many of us just aren’t willing to do that. It boils down to RESPECT. We all should just treat people the way we would want to be treated. That is Utopian thought though ;)

“Hmmm…maybe the reason BAMs are so critical of IMMs are because they finally have a chance to look down on someone.”

Or maybe we actually have legitimate gripes.

I want to address MR’s question:

You would think that this means there are not a lot of Black Muslims in America, but the fact is Black Muslims make up the largest percentage of Muslims in America at around 33%.

So the question is…Where are they?

The vast majority of BAMs are largely concentrated on the East Coast in NYC, NJ, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC. The other large populations are in Detroit and Chicago. In other communities – even those with a large amount of Muslims – BAMs are relatively rare and find it difficult to navigate in these communities and often are not active in the community. (I have found that the same is true of white and Latino Muslims in these areas) I relocated to the East Coast myself (and very glad I did) because of this difficulty. The only other option converts (regardless of race) have in these situations is to “pass” which for all purposes is wholeheartedly adopting the dominant ethnicity as their own.

In many of these communities outside of the areas I named above, there is often a synergistic coupling of Muslim with a particular immigrant group. In other words, to be Somali or Pakistani (for example) in some communities is to be Muslim and vice versa. (not to pick on Somalis or Pakistanis…this is only an example)

I don’t know what else can be said on this topic that has not already been written or said. Perhaps I am saying this because I have been in dozens of these discussions (live, email, chat, discussion board, blogs, etc).

As has been stated by others above, I believe that much of this divide is socio-economic. (I am told by Desi friends that it is rare to find a Pakistani cab driver hanging out with a Pakistani doctor) Perhaps people will always stratify along these lines, so sometimes I think that we are asking the near impossible of ourselves to expect anything different (minus bitterness)

As-Salaam Alaikum

Actually, there are some other issues directly related to this point which Br. Amad did not bring up (I don’t know if this was done intentiontionally or perhaps he intends to write something else on it?) And that is the issue of the recent trend of ‘indigenous’ Americans (this includes Caucasians and BAMs) claiming that they should take over leadership of the ‘immigrant’ community because ‘its their country’ and ‘they know best’. I have found the exact same attitude in Latino converts as well. And, sadly, this vibe is becoming more and more vocal from the ‘indigenous’ leadership of all different groups and camps; it is as if the collective silence of whom they term to be ‘immigrants’ only emboldens them more.

I find this attitude not only ludicrous, but divisive.

It is ludicrous for a number of reasons. Firstly, second-generation ‘immigrant’ Muslims are really just as much attuned to this environment as ‘indigenous’ Muslims, because they ARE as indigenous as the whites and blacks who have usurped this word!! I have a friend whose great-grandfather landed on Ellis Island in the late 20s; if my father landed in New York in the early 60′s, should I suppose that those four decades have a profound influence on our psyche because the one sailed here and the other flew?! We were both born here, we both speak English just as fluently, we both have similar educational backgrounds and jobs, but his skin color is white and mine is brown. Ironic that BAMs in particular make an issue of this ‘immigrant’ vs. ‘indigenous’ categorization.
For the umpteenth time guys, AMERICA IS A LAND OF IMMIGRANTS!!! This racist dichotomy might even have some perverted basis in, say, Norway, where immigration is a recent phenomenon, but our ‘indigenous’ brothers need to stop learning their rhetoric from Islamphobes and right-wingers who use the same logic against all Muslims.
Secondly, in terms of statistics, the very fact that ‘immigrants and their children make up the bulk of Muslims in America (surely over 70 % of active communities all over this country) needs to be taken into account.
Thirdly, as the author of the above article mentions, there are major differences in the socio-economic make-up of BAMs and ‘immigrants’. These problems need local and national leaders from WITHIN the communities, not without. A second-generation Desi American is much more attuned to my situation and problems than a BAM, and I would like leadership and scholarship from someone whom I can relate to.

This attitude is divisive for obvious reasons: it pits one group of Muslims against another, it presumes that merely due to one’s ancestry, one is inherently more qualified for leadership than others, it smacks of condescension, and it downright ignores the role that immigrants have played not only in this country in general, but in particular the Islamic movements and scholarship of the land. Not to mention that all ‘indigenous’ leaders are, in the end of the day, immigrants themselves (I don’t know of any American Indians in positions of Muslim leadership; of course there are numerous Indian Americans in that position;) )

I believe that leadership of the community should be given to those who best represent it and are qualified to lead it, regardless of whether they are second-generation or fourth-generation. Also, I believe that each community NEEDS leadership from its own ranks, as that is the only leadership that will demand respect and obedience. These respective leaders should then have a working relationship with one another, and this will be a far more effective way than ‘forcing’ one leader on everyone.

Basically, let every community appreciate what it can do, learn from where its been, and allow the other communities to interact with it in a way that best serves the ‘united’ Ummah.

Concerned Muslim

I don’t think that interracial relationships are the answer. I think that it is destructive for the vast majority of BAMs to practice this. We have to correct our own issues before even thinking about diving into mixed marriages. I also believe that after we fix the root of our problems, mixed marriage won’t be nearly as appealing.

I just want to add one important point that goes along with Brother Tariq’s response to the issue of “Where are all the Blackamerican Muslims?”

Those of us who are at least somewhat active in the community, (heck we’re reading internet articles about Muslims) must never lose sight of the fact that the majority of Muslims in the United States NEVER go to ANY mosque. There’s a huge number that may only show up for the Eid Salah and many more that do not even show up for those.

Although maShaAllaah as part of the global Islamic revival, there is a revival of serious interest in and love for the deen among a certain percentage of the younger generations here in the U.S., this is still a minority of the Muslims caught up in this. And we must realize if we are concerned for planning for the community that these younger generations that were born and grew up here (of whatever background) will face additional problems different from those of the immigrant generations. Among the immigrants, many would be attached to the mosque because that was a social environment where they could connect with people that spoke their language, shared their history, etc. They could come together to assist each other financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Although I am aware of some of the problems in those communities and among that generation, one cannot help but admire the sacrifices they made for their children and the community and the success they had in establishing masajid, schools, businesses, etc. As younger generations are more ‘assimilated’ to the U.S. they have less and less reason to come to the mosque if they are not “religious” or if they don’t find it relevant to their needs and wants. Many of those who migrated as Muslims to the United States in the first half of the 20th century completely lost their deen to the point where their descendants alive today may know that their family came originally from Lebanon or Albania or wherever but they have absolutely no connection to the deen of Islam.

Among the Blackamerican community one can also see the phenomenon of generational change as one looks at the children and grandchildren of those who first accepted Islam in the 50s, 60s or 70s. Alhamdulillaah there are some very strong and excellent families maSha Allaah but among the majority you find, as you might expect, that those who simply grew up “as Muslims” are in the majority a lot less committed to and identify less with the deen than did their parents or grandparents who originally made the choice themselves to accept Islam. Again, alhamdulillah there are many excellent and strong individuals, but anyone who has attended masjids or events affiliated with the community of Imam WD Muhammad will notice that there is a strong presence of “pioneers” but there will likely be only a handful of youth in their teens, twenties or even thirties.

All of this is to say that there are mighty challenges ahead of the community on a variety of fronts and while it is natural that we start to focus on those people who attend the mosque regularly, or attend conventions or conferences, we can never lose sight of the big picture that the majority of Muslims in this country are not even included in such observations and their Islam is lived in a completely different context.

Allaah knows best.

Those of us who are at least somewhat active in the community, (heck we’re reading internet articles about Muslims) must never lose sight of the fact that the majority of Muslims in the United States NEVER go to ANY mosque. There’s a huge number that may only show up for the Eid Salah and many more that do not even show up for those.

Abu Noor,

I couldn’t agree with you more.

Again, alhamdulillah there are many excellent and strong individuals, but anyone who has attended masjids or events affiliated with the community of Imam WD Muhammad will notice that there is a strong presence of “pioneers” but there will likely be only a handful of youth in their teens, twenties or even thirties.

A good friend of mine was giving a lecture for the youth at such a masjid. At 34, I was one of youngest in attendance. However, this is not limited to WD Mohammed’s movement as other BAM masjids are having similar problems with the second generation. (It is usually masked by an influx of young converts) The difference with BAMs (regardless of movement) is that it is a lot easier to melt back into greater non-muslim society as a “regular” Blackamerican and not look back whereas a Pakistani (for example) would be seen as a Muslim no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

I have identified a number of athletes and other celebrities that grew up Muslim, have Muslim names, but are not Muslim. (Muhsin Muhammad, Idris Bashir, Ragheeb Ismail, and Malik Yoba to name a few)

All of this is to say that there are mighty challenges ahead of the community on a variety of fronts and while it is natural that we start to focus on those people who attend the mosque regularly, or attend conventions or conferences, we can never lose sight of the big picture that the majority of Muslims in this country are not even included in such observations and their Islam is lived in a completely different context.

Indeed…In fact, I feel that the next great frontier will be going after the “un-mosqued” who are perhaps 80-90% of the US Muslims

As Salaam Alaikum,
I don’t know much about this situation so I am not going to rant about something that I am not sure of how rapid it is in the community. I will speak from personal experience:

I will say that as a BAM what I find frustrating is that many IMM love to label everything American about me haraam, and yet everything in their culture is perfectly acceptable.

salaam