A brief history of African American Muslims

October 2006
Which Ummah?
From the ‘Nation of Islam’ to the Ummah:A look at Islam and race in America

By Andrew Bossone

It's hardly news that the average American has plenty of misconceptions about Islam, but the idea of Muslims in the Americas can be puzzling to people here, too. The 8 to 10 million Muslims in the United States are, understandably, a diverse group, ranging from recent immigrants, to second- or third-generation American-born citizens (or beyond), to converts of every possible background.

But one group, calling itself the Nation of Islam (NOI), has often earned more attention than the rest put together.

This is not Al-Ummah Al-Islamiyya, the nation of Islam binding Muslims together worldwide. In fact, the NOI only represents a small fraction of American Muslims: Estimates of its numbers are around 20,000, or less than one quarter of one percent of all adherents to Islam. What’s more, this ‘nation of Islam’ is deliberately exclusive: At times it has been rightly considered to be more an arm of the black power movement than a religion at all.

And yet the organization never fails to show up in the public eye, and, until 9/11, the average American had probably learned more about the NOI in school, in movies and in the press than about true Islam itself.

The most recent incarnation of the group was formed by Louis Farrakhan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While most Muslims in America have preferred to practice their faith without seeking attention, Farrakhan has carved a prominent place for himself and the NOI in the American media. Television stations and newspapers receive press releases with catchy phrases announcing Farrakhan’s position on issues of the day. With vituperative speeches and his trademark bow ties, the NOI leader is something of a camera magnet.

Understandably, the silent majority of American Muslims finds this attention troubling, attributing it to media sensationalism. “That’s the problem of media on the national level: Sensation captivates people,” says Mahdi Brey, secretary-general of the Indianapolis-based Islamic Society of North America. “Whether it is Louis Farrakhan or bin Laden, those are the people who get attention. That is our challenge: to be heard, to define ourselves. It is very difficult.”

Particularly since 9/11, with anti-Muslim hate crimes in the States at an unprecedented level, Muslims have had problems reaching out to the mainstream press. Many feel they must attempt to strike a balance between speaking out on behalf of their religion and practicing Islam subtly so as not to attract undue negative attention.

The NOI, on the other hand, continues to hold the public’s eye. Just last year, on the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the NOI’s Million Man March on Washington, Farrakhan collaborated with public figures including the reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to organize the Millions More March, supporting a number of social causes. It seems unlikely that the group will leave the spotlight any time soon.

The question, for many here in Cairo, is what is NOI and what does it believe?
ROOTS

From its inception, the NOI held beliefs that are contrary to Islam. Early on, the NOI worshipped its founder, Wallace D. Fard, as a near god and prophet of a sort despite the fundamental tenet of Islam that there is no god but God, with Muhammad (PBUH) having been His final prophet.

Fard first appeared on the national radar when he began preaching in 1930, claiming to have come from the holy city of Mecca. One of his most passionate followers, Elijah Poole, the son of a transient Baptist minister, was poised to communicate Fard’s message. He changed his name to Elijah Mohammed and, following Fard’s mysterious disappearance, took leadership of the group, eventually becoming revered as a prophet himself.

Although in due course the group renounced both the deification of Fard and the status of Elijah Mohammed as a prophet, the NOI deviated from traditional Islamic practice in other major ways: It taught from the Bible instead of the Qur’an, celebrated Ramadan during the month of December and went as far as calling white men “devils” and black men “gods.”

“It was a total aberration from universal Islam,” Brey says.

Abdur Rahim Mohammed of the Islamic Cultural Preservation and Information Council, which is unaffiliated with the NOI, explains that the NOI’s practices differed from traditional Islam from the start because most of its converts were Christian and that the group presented the religion in an American, Judeo-Christian context.

Practicing Ramadan during the month of December was a way to steer African-Americans away from celebrating Christmas, while also taking advantage of the short daylight hours, making it easier to fast. As for teaching from the Bible, “[Elijah Mohammed] taught that the Qur’an was the holy book of Muslims. He just didn’t teach from it. We all had it. We were told to keep it high up and respect it because it is God’s word.”

“There was little literature and few Muslims,” Brey explains. “It was tough, so they defined Islam in narrow Afrocentric terms.”
A MATTER OF PRIDE

The NOI began primarily as a reaction to racial oppression and discriminatory and segregationist laws directed at African-Americans — not as a religious movement. Discrimination against African-Americans can be traced back to the days of slavery, but while they eventually gained their freedom, laws reinforced their position at the bottom of society. Public places such as restaurants, restrooms, trains, buses and schools separated blacks and whites — all with the sanction of the US government.

In the early twentieth century, a number of black nationalist movements, some with loose connections to Islam, rose in response to the racism of many white Americans. When Fard formed the NOI, he told his followers that they were descendants of the lost tribe of Shabazz, which, he said, was made up of the first humans to explore the Earth, before finally settling in Mecca and the Nile Valley.

The connection to a prestigious history attracted many African-Americans who knew little of their heritage. Followers were encouraged to drop their surnames, which had usually come from slave masters, and replace it with the letter X. Under Elijah Mohammed’s leadership, pride became a central focus of the organization.

“[Elijah Mohammed] was a messenger to the black man in America,” says Abdur Rahim, who also runs the New African Center, a museum for African-American Islamic history. “The mentality and mindset of black people in America was such that we had no knowledge of ourselves, no inkling of our history as a people. We were just a whole body of people destroyed — [that’s how] the negroes were left after slavery.”

The New African Center is in a poor neighborhood in West Philadelphia, surrounded by abandoned buildings, but the two rooms of the Center, with high ceilings and hardwood floors, still bear the scent of fresh construction. One wall features images of black slaves who retained their Muslim faith, despite forced conversions to Christianity by their masters. One rebellious slave, Ibn Said, is said to have written such beautiful Arabic script on the walls of his jail cell that visitors traveled from miles around just to see his graceful calligraphy.

For the most part, however, “We had no connection with Africa, no connection with our cause,” says Abdur Rahim. “[Elijah Mohammed] tried to connect us.”
THE MODERN COMMUNITY

Following Elijah Mohammed’s death in 1975, he was succeeded by his son, Warith Deen Mohammed, or W.D. Mohammed. The new leader made broad, sweeping changes to reconcile the NOI with traditional Islam. He renounced the deification of Fard, eliminated the notion of black superiority and worked to align the group with the larger community of Muslims.

His actions created a rift: In 1981, traditionalist elements led by Farrakhan publicly announced the reconstitution of the NOI, guided by the original teachings of Fard and Elijah Mohammed. The divide has been bridged in recent years, however, with Farrakhan recanting the notion of Fard’s deification and denying that Elijah Mohammed was a prophet, calling him a “messenger.” Farrakhan and W.D. Mohammed publicly embraced in 2000, officially announcing the movement’s “unity.”

The Muslim Journal, W.D. Mohammed’s newspaper, is headquartered in a building on the outskirts of Chicago. Inside the front door hangs a large poster of W.D. Mohammed with the late Pope John Paul II. The editors of the Muslim Journal say one of W.D. Mohammed’s missions has been to eliminate contempt for Christianity within the organization. This contempt was partly rooted in the perception that the common ‘white’ image of Jesus Christ supported the concept of racial inferiority of blacks.

“What would happen to little white kids if they were made to sit before a black image and worship? They would look at the image of God and then in the mirror and they would feel inferior,” says Ayesha Mustafaa, the journal’s editor.

Today, the majority of African-American Muslims are Sunni, although a large number are still students of W.D. Mohammed. Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an African-American and the head of the Muslim Alliance of North America, who does not follow the NOI, speaks before his congregation of diverse ethnic backgrounds at Masjid Al-Taqwa (literally, The Piety Mosque) in Brooklyn, New York. Wahhaj, who more than 10 years ago became the first Muslim to invoke prayers in front of US Congress, believes that most African-American Muslims do not consider themselves a part of the NOI; nor do most of the new converts.

“Some people are like, ‘You should be following Warith Deen Mohammed.’ Why? We have these great scholars that have legitimate differences that base their differences upon their understanding of the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, which makes for dynamic conversation and interaction,” Wahhaj says.

“We’re not here to become rigid soldiers,” he says. “We’re thinkers.”

Recently, one of the most important concerns of the American Muslim community has been discrimination since the September 11 attacks. Wahhaj often draws parallels between the struggles that Muslims are going through now and those of African-Americans in the past.

“When I rehearse history to Muslims who are foreigners or immigrants, I say, ‘It happened to black people, it happened to Jews, it happened to Italians and almost everyone had that kind of discrimination and scrutiny.’ For us, it’s patience,” he says. “It’s not going to be like this forever. There [are] too many verses in the Qur’an that teach us patience.”

Wahhaj, who was born in America and converted to Islam with his parents, travels to connect with Muslims across the country. He recently visited three different cities in one weekend and claims that at each airport, officials told him he had been “randomly selected by the computer” for security inspection.

Despite the discrimination, many Muslims see a bright future for Islam in America. Muslims who once remained in obscurity are becoming vocal about their faith — and they are not afraid to practice Islam in American society, which they say is committed to allowing them religious freedom and embracing diversity. But to bring change, Muslims in America will probably have to do it on their own.

“You should pray as if everything depends on God,” Wahhaj says, “but you should work as if everything depends on you.” et