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The
Islamic Community In The United States: Historical Development
In-depth study by Muhammed
Abdullah Ahariof the five eras of Muslim history in America - before
1800, 180-1890, 1890-1910, 1910-1950, and 1950-present.
Introduction
The purpose of the following historical survey is to present the
basic realities of the Muslim Experience in the West. I have chosen
several methods of looking at these present realities and past
experiences. Some of these are case studies and still others are from
readings in history. Today as a community we are at a point where we can
either succeed or fail to a much greater extent than in the past. We
have schools, professionals, Islamic centers and well-read Muslims. What
we lack is a core of brothers and sisters willing to try to organize
Muslims into cohesive voting blocks and into strong neighborhoods and
communities where the Muslims are visible and have a voice in the
destiny of the greater society and to some degree in the foreign policy
of America.
There are by various estimates between two and thirteen million
Muslims or non-practicing descendants of Muslims in North America.
Unfortunately most of them are not well versed in the literature and
doctrines of their religion. Most of them would like to pass Islam on to
their children and grandchildren, but this is unlikely without parents
who have a strong knowledge about the Islamic faith and practice it in
their daily life. One method of analyzing our current situation is to
study our past. In order to develop my theme (along this line), I will
divide the history of Islam in America into five eras: before 1800,
180-1890, 1890-1910, 1910-1950, and 1950-present.
Before 1800
1) The Navigator of Columbus, who during the famous voyage, brought
along a copy of a travel narrative written by Portuguese Muslims who had
sailed to the New World in the 12th century. The narrative by al-Idrisi
was called "The Sea of Tears". In this narrative he discusses
he voyage of 80 muhagharrun (explorers) who lived in Lisbon during the
reign of the Murabit amir, Yusuf ibn Tashufin. In the narrative it
mentions visits to fourteen islands. Over half of these islands were
later traced to be in either the Canary Islands or the Azores. However,
the ones not traced could have been as far away or the Azores. However,
the ones not traced could have been as far away as the Caribbean. An
early travel from 942 A.D. is mentioned in the Annuals of al-Mas'udi. (Aramco
World, May-June 1992)
2) Istafan, the Arab, was a guide for the Spanish that wished to
settle the area that would later be called Arizona in 1539. Istafan was
from Azamor, Morocco and had previously been to the New World in the
ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez to Florida in 1527. Brent
Kennedy mentions him in his article in Islamic Horizons as being one of
the first Moors and Muslims in America. Istafan was one of four to
survive a five thousand mile tour of the American Southwest. Originally
he was part of a three hundred member exploratory group. He would go on
to become the first visitor from Europe or Africa among the Pueblo
Indians. (Islamic Horizons November/December 1994, pp.24-27). He was
also a guide for the Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza and was in this
capacity until he was killed in an Indian attack in Arizona and New
Mexico in 1539.
3) Another early Muslim in this period was
Nasruddin. He is famous
for having killed a Mohawk princess who refused to marry him and for
being the earliest permanent Arab settlers in the New World. [History of
Green County, N.Y., pp. 19-22.]
4) Ayub Sulaiman ibn Diallo became a go between for his people and
the British after his repatriation. I mention him because he continued
to practice Islam during his two years of slavery in the 1730's in
Maryland. He was versed enough in Arabic to write at least a half dozen
letters in that language, translate coin inscriptions for the British
Museum, and draw a map of West Africa writing place names in Arabic.
5) Salim the Algerian, who was a Muslim from a royal family of
Algiers that studied in Constantinople. After returning from a visit to
Constantinople, he was captured by a Spanish Man of War and later sold
into slavery to the French in New Orleans. Eventually he became free
after running from slavery, lived among American Indian tribes, and
settled in Virginia. Salem was found in rags, almost naked, and was
taught English. Eventually, it was ascertained that he knew Greek and he
was given a Greek New Testament. Several future members of the U.S.
Congress befriended him and he converted to Christianity. A new convert
to Christianity he decided to go back home to spread the Gospel. After a
disastrous journey to his homeland (where he was shunned as an
apostate), he returned to America, met Thomas Jefferson, attended the
1st Continental Congress, and died an insane man having given-up his
family and religion for America. While he was at the Congress his
picture was painted by a Mr. Peale after the intervention of a member of
the Congress Mr. Page. Near the end of Salem's life, he regained his
long lost sanity. He had been insane since his trip to his homeland
after his conversion to Christianity. Some say he renounced
Christianity, other say died a Christian at the Page estate, and still
others say he died in an insane asylum. [Graham's Magazine, 1857, pp.
433-437.] It should be noted that none of these men tried to spread
Islam and only Ayub tried to preserve his own belief.
The Wahhab brothers were shipwrecked on the coast of North Carolina
in the 1770's. They settled married and started a farm. Their ancestors
today own one of the largest private hotel chains in North Carolina. The
only contemporary reference I have on them is a letter from the North
Carolina historian Thomas Parramore. Whether they or their ancestors
stayed in the Islamic faith is something that I can not answer at this
time. Around this same time a ship of 70 odd Moorish slaves landed in
Maryland. No more is known on these Moors.
An important point is that these Muslims were not unique in being
able to read and write Arabic. In fact, in many slave quarters in the
Caribbean and Brazil there were clandestine Arabic and Islamic schools.
One can find references to these in the works by Nina Rodriguez and in
the two volume book TWELVE MONTHS IN JAMAICA by Robert Madden (Phil.:
Carey, Lea and Blanchard, 1835).
1800-1890
During the era of 1800-1890, there was documentation of the Islamic
presence in the slave quarters by four individuals:
1) Theodore Dwight, Jr. wrote about a slave named Lamen Kebe who was
a school teacher in Africa. He was the focus of two articles by Dwight.
Lamen Kebe gave him a list of over twenty texts used in his schools and
some information on teaching method used in those Islamic schools (much
of it still valuable today). At the end of one of articles he also
attached one of the earliest glossaries we have of the Serrechuleh
language. Dwight also mentions Abdul Rahman and Ayub b. Sulaiman Diallo
in passing.
2) James Cooper wrote the story of Salih Bilali which was published
with other ethnological writings in William Brown Hodgson's NOTES ON
NORTH AFRICA (NY: Wiley and Putnam, 1844). Salih was a Fulani (as are
all the others mentioned) and his story is only found in a letter by
Cooper. This letter is republished in AFRICA REMEMBERED by Philip Curtin
(Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin, 1967). Here we have an oral remembrance of
Africa and a vocabulary of Fula but nothing about his training or
practice in Islam.
3) William Brown Hodgson was perhaps the most important of these
documenters. The main characters Hodgson documented were the following:
Bilali Muhammad, who wrote the only extant book of Islamic Law written
in America and contributed several Islamic terms to the Gullah dialect
of English. He gave his descendants Muslim names and taught them until
the generation of his grand-children.; 'Umar ibn Said was a butler of a
brother of a former Governor of North Carolina that lived at
Fayetteville, N.C. and who wrote a 13 pp. autobiography in Arabic. What
he wrote shows that he might have been a Qadiriyyah Sufi, trader, and
school teacher who feigned conversion to Christianity under difficult
circumstances.; Abdul Rahman Ibrahim Sori who wrote 2 autobiographies, 2
copies of the Fatiha, signed a charcoal sketch of himself by Henry Inman
[This picture was on the cover of "Freedmen's Journal" and is
on display in the Library of Congress.], and dictated several letters to
his family while he was traveling the U.S. to raise money to return to
Africa. None of his Arabic writings show the least formal education but
it is surprising that he remembered the little Arabic he knew after
forty years in slavery before he returned to Africa to die. His story is
documented in PRINCE AMONG SLAVES by Terry Alford (NY: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1977).; A slave named London was detailed in a pamphlet by
Hodgson called THE GOSPELS WRITTEN IN THE NEGRO PATIOS OF ENGLISH IN
ARABIC CHARACTERS BY A MANDINGO SLAVE NAMED LONDON. This was perhaps the
only systematic try at writing English in Arabic letters up to that
point. He was held in slavery by the Maxwell family of Savannah,
Georgia. They latter moved to Florida where he died.; and an unknown
slave correspondent from Georgetown, S.C. who wrote 5 chapters of the
Qur'an from memory. This was translated by Hodgson.
4) Wm. Caruthers author of THE KENTUCKIAN IN NEW YORK (NY, 1834, p.
146) where a slave who wrote the Fatiha at the request of a traveler is
mentioned.
One Muslim of this era not covered by these writers was Hadji Ali
(Philip Tedro) a Greek convert to Islam and one of six camel handlers
(three Arabs, Two Turks, and Hadji Ali) in the short-lived U.S. camel
calvary corp in 1856. The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis introduced a
bill in Congress, that passed in 1855, to import camels for military
purposes in the Arizona desert. During the experiment, 77 camels and six
handlers were brought over from the East. When the War between the
States broke out, this experiment was abandoned. It was called off due
to the impending Civil War. Hadji Ali was the only of the cameleers to
remain in the U.S.. The others returned to their homelands. Circuses and
Zoos acquired some of the camels and others were turned loose. The
camels that were turned loose in the desert terrorized live stock and
wild animals for years. Hadji A]i became a prospector in the Colorado
River Area. He eventually became a legend under- the corrupted name
given to him by soldiers in the U.S. calvary- Hi Jolly. The legacy of
this experiment are a highway gravemarker for Hadji Ali, some U.S. Army
Manuals [see esp.- "Report Upon the Purchase, Importation, and Use
of Camels and Dromedaries, To be Employed for military purposes,
According to Act of Congress March 3, 1855. Made under the Direction of
the Secretary of War 1855, '56, '57-240 pp.], and a movie by Walt Disney
called Hawmps starring Slim Pickens and Denver Pyle. Hadji Ali lived to
1903 in Quartzsite, Arizona where he was a Prospector and resident Imam.
His three daughters were raised as Muslims but I have yet to verify how
many generations Islam continued in his family.
The Omani Embassy published a pamphlet about the exploits of the
first Arab traders to the United States during the 1840's. They did not
settle here, however. [Eilts, Herman Fredrick The Visit of Ahmad bin
Na'aman to the U.S. in the Year 1840, Embassy of Oman 1962.]
One Muslim mentioned in a book by Allan Austin (African Muslims in
Antebellum America), Yarrow Marmout, was poorly covered by writers and
deserves mention as he was perhaps one of the longest lived individuals
in this country (He died at over 130.) and he was one of the first
shareholders of the Washington, D.C. Columbia Bank which was the second
chartered bank in the United States.
1890-1910
In the era of 1890-1910 the only movement we can truly talk about is
that of Muhammad Alexander Russell Webb. Many trace him to be first
"white convert" to Islam in America. Before he became Muslim,
he was a newspaper editor and later the consular to the Philippines for
the U.S.. He accepted the post of consular in 1887. While a consular he
began to read books on Eastern and Oriental religions. Soon afterwards
he began written correspondence with Indian Muslims and in 1888 he
publicly declared his Islam. He resigned his post in 1892 and went to
India where he had a lecture tour of four cities: Delhi, Bombay,
Calcutta, and Hyderabad. These lectures were published in the books: The
Three Lectures and in Lectures in Various Locations. The topics for
these lectures included: Islam, The Better Way, and Philosophical Islam.
Upon returning to the U.S. he set up the Oriental Publishing Company
which published at least a half dozen of books including Islam in
America [Webb, Muhammad A.R., New York, 1892.] and his short lived
periodical "Moslem World". He had a Mosque on upper Broadway
which failed prior to his death in 1915, his being appointed Turkish
Emissary to the U.S., and writing of a still very pertinent book The
Armenian Problem and Where the Responsibility Lies. The last being the
views of Webb in the conflict between the Turks and the Armenians. One
possible reason his group failed is that it did not address the needs of
the generality of people, it was a movement of philosophers.
1910-1950
1910-1950 saw several Orthodox Sufi, Ahmadiyyah, Bahia, Shia, and
so-called Black Nationalists groups arise. To speed the process I will
talk about the Orthodox Mosques (in Ross, N.D., Detroit, and in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa), Sheikh Dawood, Sufi Abdul Hamid, Noble Drew Ali, and
Elijah Muhammad.
In historical order, the Ross Mosque is the earliest and longest
lasting Masjid in America. The congregation at its largest was 100
persons. The Masjid was built in 1930 and remained standing until 1978
and in use till the late 60's when conversions and mixed marriages had
decreased the numbers of Muslims till a point where Arabic was no longer
used, the cemetery had gophers, and there were no practicing Muslims to
attend Juma.
An earlier mosque was built in 1915 in Maine by Albanians as was one
in Connecticut, but they are not as strongly documented or publicized.
In Brooklyn the Polish speaking Tatars built a mosque which was still in
use in 1926. The Red Crescent was founded in Detroit, in 1920 and a
Mosque was built there which lasted from 1926-1932 and as far as I know
still stands. The main problem at that point was not lack of numbers but
lack of finance. Only a few brothers kept the Masjid afloat and the
Depression proved it to be too much of financial liability for them. The
Lebanese Masjid in Cedar Rapids, started in 1935 and still in operation,
suffered few of these problems. Going overseas to marry was common,
Arabic was widely used, finance was freer, and fewer persons drifted
from Islam.
Early Orthodox Sufis
Sheikh Dawood and Sufi Abdul Hamid represent homegrown Orthodox
Islam. Sheikh Dawood founded the Islamic Mission Society on State Street
in 1934 Brooklyn. Over 75,000 persons accepted Islam under his tutelage
before his death in 1981. His controversial theory of Islam being
genetic ingrown was to be adapted later by the likes Elijah Muhammad and
Imam Isa. His success was due to his willingness to suffer personal
abuse and financial difficulty for the sake of Islam. His writings and
theories are contained in his self-published books al-Islam the Religion
of Humanity (1950) and Islam the True Religion of Humanity (1965). His
contemporary, Sufi, and his teacher Mandaly from Egypt had similar
success in Harlem but their work was cut short when Mandaly had a heart
attack and died. Sufi died in a plane crash. The shortcoming of their
work was that they failed to train proper successors and the movement
died with them. [Ottley, Roi, `New World A-Coming', Arno Press, New
York, 1968, pp. 116-9.] more material on these individuals is found in
the chapters on Sufi Abdul Hameed and Sheikh Daoud Ahmad Faisal.
Noble Drew Ali and Elijah Muhammad represent the Islamic Nationalist
side to Islam between 1910 and 1950. Both movements outlasted their
founders. Ali started his movement, the Moorish Science Temple in May of
1913, with the short lived Canaanite Temple. He gave an answer to the
question of who the recently freed African were, how they could have
self esteem, and allowed them to be part of a movement not under the
former slave masters control. His main error was to fail to fully bring
people into the reality of the Arabic Language, Qur'an, and Ibadat, but
he gave them a clear concept of a Jesus that they could accept and of
Tawheed which Christianity failed to give them.
The Nation of Islam
Elijah Muhammad's organization, the Nation of Islam, was begun in
Paradise Valley (a Black Ghetto of Detroit) on July 4, 1930 by one Mr.
W.D. Farrad. A mysterious peddler from the East and one-time contestant
for Drew Ali's leadership of Islamic Nationalism in Newark, N.J.. W.D.
Farrad was reputed to have been born of a white mother and black father
(Mimi and Alfonso) on February 28, 1877 in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. His
education supposedly received at U.C.L.A. and Oxford. Farrad was to have
been a member of the diplomatic corp in the Hijaz but decided against it
in order to go to the "Wilderness of North America to find his
Uncle (the Black Man)" and teach him (his Uncle) Islam and the true
history of the Black Man. After teaching for three years he left the
U.S. to points unknown.
He left behind a successor, Elijah Muhammad, and some written
teachings set down in several lesson plans of which seven are somewhat
assessable today. This was a way of teaching not uncommon to church
catechisms, Masonic degrees, or Moorish American Koran Questionnaires.
By 1934 Farrad became a sort of hidden Imam common to the doctrines of
the Druze and Ishmaeli versions of Islam. He seemed to expound rhetoric
similar to military manual directives, Moorish Science, Masonry, and
some vague Eschatology and doctrines (such as blood atonement) somewhat
similar to that of early Utah Mormons. His movement succeeded due to
dedicated individuals and strong leadership that was willing to suffer
for the movement. His weaknesses were failure to teach proper rules for
prayer and fasting and preaching the concept of Ali reincarnated through
the Imams and the Mahdi (later he was considered Allah incarnate).
1950-PRESENT
The next forty years saw the rise and fall of the Nation of Islam
and its rebirth (primarily with Silas Muhammad, Farrakhan, John
Muhammad, W.D. Muhammad, and Imam Isa). The groups that resurrected
tended to try and revolutionize the teachings. Two groups came out of
the Nation before its fall: Calistran and the Five Percenter Nation.
Five Percenters
Started in Harlem by a former Korean War Veteran -- Clarence Jowars
(Clarence 13X or Puddin'). He disassociated himself from the Nation and
founded his own group (which still exists) in the early 1960's.
According to numerous detractors (police, Orthodox Muslims, etc.), the
Five Percenter Nation is little more than a gang using Nation of Islam
mythos mixed with some new lessons that Clarence compiled. Their flag is
an eight pointed star with a circle seven in the center (from Moorish
Science) and the words "In the Name of Allah" above it.
Clarence 13X was assassinated by some disgruntled members in 1968 and he
became the departed spiritual leader -- now incarnate within the body of
all male members (Black Gods). Many Rap stars such as Kool Moe Dee, Poor
Righteous Teachers, and Queen Latifah derive their material from his
writings and teachings.
Silas Muhammad
A favorite West Coast minister of Elijah Muhammad. The Nation paid
for his education at UCLA. He is centered in Atlanta and has several
thousand followers in twenty one temples nationwide. He claims to be the
spiritual son of the Virgin Mary (Elijah Muhammad) and has written a
book (The Wake of the Nation) to support his claims. He works with
Whites for a restitution for the wrongs of slavery and publishes a
newspaper called "Muhammad Speaks".
Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam
Farrakhan is perhaps the loudest and most articulate of all former
Nation of Islam leaders. He separated from Warith Deen Muhammad in 1977
and started his "Final Call Newspaper" and organization in
1979. The name of the newspaper was derived from an early Nation paper
called "The Final Call to Islam". He is the most interesting
and contradictory among former Nation leaders. According to detractors,
Farrakhan has accepted and rejected Orthodox Islam at a whim whenever it
would benefit him. He has: made Hajj; belonged to Warith Deen Muhammad's
group; called for unity between Hispanics, Native Americans and Blacks;
played Jewish violin concertos even when denouncing certain aspects of
Jewish life and culture; and fights a war to end the drug problem (a war
he started only after he found out his own son was a drug abuser). His
inner circle reputably includes Black Nationalists, American Indians,
Gangbangers, and other so-called dangerous and disreputable individuals.
Currently almost one hundred temples are under his leadership and he has
perhaps as many as fifty thousand members nationwide. His position in
the African American community was recently strengthen by his highly
successful "Million Man March" on Washington, D.C..
W.D. Muhammad
W.D. Muhammad is the leader of the largest group to come out of the
Nation of Islam. He has lead the members of his organization to Orthodox
Islam over the years and changed the name of his group to the World
Community of Islam to the American Muslim Mission and now each
mosque/temple has its own name and leadership. His paper also changed
names from "Muhammad Speaks" to "Muslim World News"
to "Bilalian News" to "American Muslim Journal" to
"Muslim Journal". The organization underwent numerous changes
under his leadership. Members of his group also changed their ethos from
being Black Muslims to being Bilalians to being just Muslim. The best
study of Warith Deen Muhammad and his ties to Orthodox Islam is found in
the work by Zafar Ishaq Ansari "W.D. Muhammad: The Making of a
`Black Muslim Leader' (1933-1961)" found in the Vol. 2, No. 2 issue
of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.
W.D. Muhammad has begun the needed work of teaching proper Islam
based on Qur'an and Sunnah and he is somewhat hindered by the legacy of
his father and his tendency to give the teachings of the Qur'an as
mostly symbolic as he was taught the Bible was.
The changes in the teachings were wide and varied, they included:
allowing white members, an end to a call for a separate "nation of
blacks" in this country, a call to voter registration, an end to
beliefs that Allah was incarnated in the form of Master Farrad and the
belief in Elijah Muhammad being a Messenger of Allah. Warith Deen was
excommunicated several times from the Nation and only gained the ability
to step in a position of leadership in the last year of his father's
life when he was reinstated as a minister in the Nation of Islam.
Fasting in Ramadhan, an end to the December fast, changing the
dietary taboos to Qur'anic based ones, and a standard Muslim salah
(prayer) were other changes he instituted. In 1978 he stepped down as
spiritual head and became a minister at large. His organization has
become decentralized and his rhetoric is less spooky and mystical and
more in line with Orthodox Islam. In 1985 he dismantled the leadership
council he had setup and each mosque became an independent entity. He
works as a kind of liaison between the Black Muslims and the Immigrant
community. Several collection of his speeches such as: Religion on Line,
An African American Genesis, and Leadership and Islam are widely
available. (see From Black Muslims to Muslims by Clifton E. Marsh for
details.)
Numerous former Nation of Islam leaders disagreed with his changes.
Most were people who returned to the old teachings such as Farrakhan,
Silas Muhammad, John Muhammad, and Caliph Emmanuel Muhammad. One who
turned to Orthodox Islam was Siraj Wahaj.
Siraj Wahaj
Siraj Wahaj was a former minister of the Nation of Islam who
initially accepted the leadership of Warith Deen Muhammad. He later
split over issues where he felt that Warith Deen Muhammad was being too
accomodating to American society. Siraj Wahaj supports polygamy and full
implementation of the Shariah where as Warith Deen Muhammad rejected
polygamy and favored a more gradual move toward implementation of
Shariah. Since the split Warith Deen Muhammad allegedly has moved his
group closer to the Wahhabi sect and called for the reestablishment of
the Caliphate.
Jamil al-Amin
Jamil al-Amin was born as H. "Rap" Brown in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana in 1943. In 1964 he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and rapidly moved up
through its ranks. In 1967, at the age of 23, he succeeded Stockley
Carmichael as leader of the SNCC and its ranks swelled. He allied
himself and his group with the Black Panthers and this was where he
began to learn Islam. The Black Panthers accepted the political and
economic views of the Nation but were slow to accept it moral, ethical,
and dietary edicts. When he turned the movement from non-violence to
Urban Guerilla Warfare he was placed on the FBI's most wanted list.
After his 1973 arrest he decided to accept Orthodox Islam. In 1976 he
left prison and had placed the violent non-Muslim lifestyle behind him.
Today he is leader of over thirty Islamic centers which were (for the
most part member of the Dar ul-Islam Movement - a group which came about
from the work of early students of Sheikh Daoud) and has documented his
feeling about Islam in the work Revolution by the Book (Beltsville,
Maryland: Writer's Inc., 1994).
John Muhammad
Warith Deen Muhammad's uncle John Muhammad acts as the
"orthodox" Nation of Islam teacher as he allegedly does not
teach anything except what Elijah Muhammad distinctly taught. He joined
the Nation in 1930 with his brother Elijah. He is the only one of his
immediate family of fourteen children and a wife who follows the old
teachings. His wife is a follower of Warith Deen Muhammad. His movement
has less than a thousand members and only a handful of active temples.
The headquarters is in Highland Park, Michigan and a newspaper called
"Muhammad Speaks" is published by his organization. A full
length story (by Linda Jones) on his group can be found in The Detroit
News of July 17, 1988.
Caliph Emmanuel Muhammad
A group with less than two hundred followers centered in Baltimore.
The leader Emmanuel Muhammad claims to be the successor or Caliph of
Elijah Muhammad. His group publishes a paper called "Muhammad
Speaks" out of Baltimore, Maryland.
Imam Isa
Imam Isa is a Unitarian Universalist, Spiritualist, Jewish, Ansar,
Black Nationalist successor to the self proclaimed Messenger of Allah,
the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He claims to be the successor of Marcus
Garvey, Elijah Muhammad and Noble Drew Ali! Over 300 of his books and
pamphlets are peddled on the street by his followers. A heavily armed
camp/retreat was located in upstate New York. No count of his membership
has be attempted. His group has now openly proclaimed themselves to be
Black Jews even though they still claim lip service to the Qur'aan and
the Prophet Muhammad.
Others who came out of the Nation of Islam
Others came from the Nation and we must remember them as orthodox
Muslims. These orthodox Muslims include: Muhammad Ali, Hamas Abdul
Khaalis, and Malcolm X. Muhammad Ali went on to become one of the
greatest sports men in this nation and a great contributor to the spread
of Islam. Hamas Abdul Khaalis re-founded the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center in
New York in 1958. It was originally started by Dr. Tasibur Uddein Rahman
in the late 1920's. In 1947 Ernest Timothy McGee joined, he was later
sent by Dr. Rahman to join the Nation of Islam to guide them to Orthodox
Islam. By 1956 he became National Secretary for the nation of Islam. He
left in 1958. It was later moved to Washington, D.C.. At his height he
had over a thousand followers and led protests for several Muslim
causes. His most famous follower is Kareem Abdul Jabbar. In 1977,
Khaalis and some of his followers seized some buildings in D.C. as part
of a protest and held them for some hours. One hostage was killed. He is
currently serving a sentence of 41 to 120 years. [Giant Steps, Kareem
Abdul Jabbar and an AMC report on the history of Islam in America]
Al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz (Malcolm X)
One of the greatest Muslim leaders ever in America was, of course,
Malcolm X (or according to his true Muslim name- Al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz).
He started the political street organ of the Nation of Islam--the
"Muhammad Speaks" newspaper and influenced several generations
with his eye-opening auto-biography. Till the end of his life he was
dedicated to the struggle for the rights of all oppressed people of the
world. He was allegedly killed at the hands of FBI sponsored
infiltrators into the Nation of Islam.
Conclusion
It is strange that the religion of peace is always faced with violent
confrontation from both within and without. Allah says, "And thus
We have made you a middle Nation that you may witness to all people and
We made the Apostle a witness to you...", in Sura 2 of the Holy
Qur'an. How could this history with its' successes, failures, and
disappointments exist when we are instructed to be a middle of witnesses
to mankind and propagate Islam.
In summary, this historical briefing on Islam in America focused on
American Muslims and Muslims that were becoming Americans. This
information points to the needs of dawa'h, Islamic schools, fighting
assimilation, bi-lingual education, masjids, and taking part in the
greater society.
This ground work is da'wah, developing schools and businesses, adult
education, and programs to teach Arabic and Qur'an to such an extent our
community here becomes bi-lingual and stays that way. Next we need to
have Islamic holidays recognized in public schools in much the same way
Jewish holidays are and finally we need to make that sure proper books
on Islam are in every single public and private library in the U.S. and
books on Islam are placed in as many non-Muslim homes as feasible.
©Muhammed Abdullah Ahari
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