Voices of Islam (243 page)

‘‘ISNA has tried to have both conventions held under one banner,’’ stated Dr. Ghazi. Mentioning how South Asian Muslims hold Imam W. D. Mohammed and other African American leaders in high regard, he contin- ued, ‘‘We prefer that they go and lead us. They
are
our leaders, but there is resistance from the African American community to be a part of the whole.’’
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Yet WDM Imams contend that it is Imam W. D. Mohammed who desires a joint convention while South Asian immigrants continue to perpetuate a tone of authority over African Americans. In other words, they have yet to indicate to WDM Imams that they would uphold the mutual respect and shared authority that a joint project would require. ‘‘He is waiting on them, I believe,’’ asserted one WDM Imam. ‘‘The imam has been ready.’’
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Imam Sultan described immigrant Muslim leaders as generally respecting ‘‘our leader,’’ but still underestimating Imam W.D. Mohammed’s leadership on how to live Islam in an American context.
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Imam Sultan questioned how immigrants can ‘‘try to be our leaders’’ when African American Muslims carry a longer cultural legacy in the United States. He argued his point with an analogy: ‘‘When I went to Saudi, I didn’t try to run nothing over there. What’s wrong with them doing the same thing? This is our home.’’

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Ultimately Imam Sultan believes that they can be a mutual resource as both groups negotiate how to live Islam in America. He acknowledges that immigrants have knowledge to offer African American Muslims but wishes that they would offer it with more humility. At the same time, immigrants should more readily ask, ‘‘What can I learn from your community?’’

But outside the question of whether different ethnic Muslims can show mutual regard, Chicago leaders see the convention divide reflecting natural cultural differences and different interpretations of Islam. ‘‘We play music at our conventions and they think of music as
haram.
We have someone playing piano, someone up there singing. Imam Mohammed once said, ‘They have their culture and we have ours, but we can unite in prayer together’.’’ Similarly, Dr. Ghazi recognizes ‘‘different issues, different problems, differ- ent slang and talking’’ among African American Muslims when he attends the WDM convention. ‘‘I don’t feel as at home there as when I go to ISNA.’’ Arabs and Bosnians have their own conventions also, and there, he said, ‘‘I also feel as an outsider.’’

Cultural preferences aside, Dr. Ghazi also senses that many African American Muslims believe that they must establish autonomy and independ- ence as part of acquiring self-dignity. ‘‘They have lived in America, they have built America, and they have made a tremendous contribution here. They came under slavery, lynching, and discrimination that’s still going on. They fought and they won, and we [Muslim immigrants] came when the society is more open. So they don’t want to hear us saying, ‘Here is a poor person’.’’ I heard African American Muslim voices that reinforced Dr. Ghazi’s position, voices that claimed sole accountability for restoring the economy within their communities. They not only recognize the injustice and disadvantage of their location but also the possibility to build strength from within their location. In my interview with Imam Sultan, we talked about Devon Avenue, a South Asian business district in Chicago. Imam Sultan stressed how ‘‘we need to do our own work from our own hands,’’ building a comparable African American Muslim business district in Chicago. ‘‘You feel more at home with your own. And it’s not that we are not one community [meaning one community with non-black Muslims]. It’s just that they have worked and they’ve got their establishment. We need to work to get our establishment.’’

I heard a range of perspectives about how to achieve economic justice in African American communities. Conversation shifted between philosophies of self-help and the right to economic resources (that is, reparations). The most compelling arguement for self-help I heard was from Dr. Mikal Ramadan, the Imam of the Taqwa Islamic Center, a WDM mosque on Chicago’s southwest side. Dr. Ramadan challenged African American Muslims to build, critiquing WDM Muslims for not meeting the challenge of their leaders. ‘‘Where’s Chicago’s strong business thrust that came out of the legacy of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? Where’s Chicago’s

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continuation of that effort? Where is it for the believers who have pro- moted Islam in this city for all those years, under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and now under the Imam [Imam W. D. Mohammed] in the past 27 years? What is there in Chicago now to show for all of that?’’
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African American Muslims in Chicago should have produced more, given the unique presence of leadership in the city: ‘‘We had the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, we have Jesse Jackson, we have Minister Farrakhan, and we have Imam Warith Deen Muhammad in this city. We had Malcolm in this city. The legacy that we have here, I feel a responsibility from that. Shame on us to have had this, and now to have to say, ‘What has been produced from this?’’’ Dr. Ramadan does not deny that there has been progress in Chicago’s African American communities. ‘‘There’s a huge professional, well-off group [of African Americans] in Chicago,’’ a large percentage of them moving to the south suburbs. He critiqued the African American middle-class to which he belongs but not for their choice of residence. ‘‘It’s natural for people to move. It’s why people move to America, for better opportunities. So I don’t fault them for doing that.’’ Rather the fault comes when they do not go back into their former communities and ‘‘build bridges so that others can do better.’’ Thus, instead of critiquing professional South Asians, Dr. Ramadan critiques professional African Americans who have forgotten the struggle of the larger community. ‘‘When you think of the [African American] middle class as a group, what are they doing? What are their works? What have they done? What can we point to? What’s substantive?’’ He feels that their work ‘‘is not easily identifi This void, Dr. Ramadan believes, explains Imam Mohammed’s emphasis on collective work. ‘‘The Imam has a desire to build a ‘New Africa’ community, to have some geography, a place that we can point to and say, ‘That’s where they [African American Muslims] are, over there, and look how well they’re doing over there. They’re running their own businesses, their own masjid, their own schools. They’re an industrial people.’

That’s what the Imam wants.’’

For Dr. Ramadan, the question remains: how will African American Muslims arrive at a New Africa? ‘‘Are we going to ship in people? Are we going to bring African American immigrants from out of town to occupy this place? Who’s going to do all these things?’’ Of course his answer is that African Americans, Muslims and non-Muslims, must do this, not immi- grants. To him, the economic progress of South Asians does not indicate a responsibility to help build African American communities but rather a challenge to African Americans to create their own progress. ‘‘I say, ‘
Alhamdulillah,
go ahead brothers. Do it.’ It challenges us. It’s like a runner in a race. You’ve given us an example and there’s no reason why you should not be able to come to our Devon Street in the South Side. Where are the African American Muslim streets? So I’m inspired by it and challenged by it. The key to this is we have not inspired our professional class to do [what South Asian immigrants have done].’’

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Dr. Ramadan recognizes the ‘‘stronger business and professional class’’ among South Asian immigrants. They benefit from the ‘‘selection process’’ in immigration policy, and they do not share the ‘‘post-traumatic slavery stress’’ in African American communities. But he refuses to let these dispar- ities become an excuse. ‘‘Notwithstanding the challenges, the race is going to go on whether you participate or not. The Imam has said that he wants us to be competitive. We cannot use other folks’ feet to stand on, not the White Man’s feet, or Pakistanis’ or others’ to escape doing a job that we as men gotta do for ourselves. This is not [a] racial, radical [position], but [a stance] for individual dignity.’’ When asked if privileged South Asian Muslims have a responsibility to help poor African Americans and others, after a careful, hesitant pause, he responded, ‘‘
Zakat.
And if you think any more than that, you become the new beggar.’’

Even with the Islamic duty to give
Zakat,
he disapproves of the attitude among African American Muslims who feel that others owe them something. ‘‘The person who feels, ‘They owe us,’ is somebody who has lost the race and said, ‘I am no longer a competitor. I want you to recognize my disability, and I want you to afford me leeway because I’m deficient.’ In a few minutes they will be saying, ‘You all over there, y’all owe me. Come back here, you can’t leave me’.’’ Dr. Ramadan believes in the open free market. ‘‘Just make it fair. Make it close to fair for me, close to fair, and by the help of my God, I’ll show you what I can do.’’ With this attitude, Dr. Ramadan believes that African Americans could be the ones providing resources. ‘‘Are you asking for charity? Why aren’t you giving them charity? Many of them have nothing when they hit these shores, struggling to get a foothold in America. We should be helping them as travelers to the new shores. How does it look? They are hitting the shores, paddling into the mainstream with a fury, and leaving us in the backwater.’’

As equal competitors, Dr. Ramadan believes that African American and South Asian Muslims can more effectively do cooperative work in the Chicago Umma. He sees African American autonomy as a way of ‘‘cooperat- ing but still realizing responsibility.’’ Although Imam Abdullah is more vocal about South Asian responsibility, he also stresses African American responsibility. ‘‘African Americans also have to put themselves in a position of independence so that when they come to the table, they come in a position of strength: ‘I come with a million, now you come with a million.’ If both are on the same level, then you come with dignity.’’
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CLAIMING A COMMON HISTORY

Exposed to the discourses presented above, young American Muslims gradually grow more conscious of ethnic divides in their communities. Challenges remain as they seek to bridge these divides, often because they

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have yet to develop a substantial context in which to improve intra-Umma relations. One place to start, some suggest, is to claim a common American Muslim history. Conscious of the ways in which our ethnic Muslim histories overlap and sometimes take shape vis-a`-vis the other, Muslim youth may develop a greater sense that our future as American Muslims depends on the collective efforts of all ethnic groups in the American Umma to create a fruitful American Muslim experience.

One historical narrative through which African American and South Asian immigrant Muslims can claim a common American Muslim history is the nar- rative that recounts the beginnings of the Nation of Islam and the legendary Master Farad Muhammad, also known as Fard Muhammad. In July 1930 in Detroit, Master Farad Muhammad began his mission to transform the lives of African Americans. He entered their homes, telling them that he was an Arab from Mecca sent by God to redeem His chosen people.
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He revealed to his listeners that ‘‘African Americans were of the lost, but fi ly found Nation of Islam, the tribe of Shabazz that had been stolen by the ‘Caucasian cave man’ or the ‘blond blue-eyed devil’ and brought as slaves to ‘the wilder- ness of North America.’’’
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Although Master Farad’s true identity had been shrouded in mystery, recent historians and experts, including Imam W. D. Mohammed, confirm his South Asian roots.
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In 1931, Elijah Poole, a poor migrant from Sandersville, Georgia, attended one of Master Farad’s meetings in Detroit. Elijah immediately accepted his teachings and developed a special relationship with Master Farad. After three and a half years of intense instruction and intimacy with Elijah Poole, Master Farad mysteriously departed in 1934. Before his departure, he gave Elijah the name Muhammad.
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With only a third-grade education, Elijah Muhammad remarkably spread Master Farad’s black nationalist teachings to poor blacks in the inner city. It was through this South Asian and African American encounter that America and the world would come to know the most powerful and sustainable black nationalist movement in history, the Nation of Islam.

Growing up as the daughter of former Nation members, I claimed this history. I always enjoyed hearing my parents and community members tell their Nation stories, stories about baking bean pies and whole wheat rolls, about sewing Nation uniforms and bow ties, about selling
Muhammad Speaks
and fish on black street corners, and about hearing the Honorable Elijah Muhammad or Malcolm X speak. What strikes me now is how a South Asian migration narrative, crisscrossing generations of black nationalist aspiration, set in motion some of the most important moments and people in black history. Unexpectedly I discovered American black history reaching back not only to West Africa but also to the Punjab, the birthplace of Master Farad (according to one report),
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because transmitting the stories of Clara Muhammad,
57
Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Imam W. D. Mohammed means telling the story of Master Farad.

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Unexpectedly, during my research in Chicago, I also discovered South Asian Muslim men sharing in the collective storytelling of NOI history. One of my favorite moments hearing NOI accounts from a South Asian man occurred in an interview with Dr. Ghazi who shared personal stories about his encounter with Elijah Muhammad. To hear stories from a South Asian man that I had imagined only African Americans could tell made me feel as though I had uncovered parts of history that had yet to be told.

It was in 1968 that Dr. Ghazi visited Chicago to attend a Muslim conference. He was determined to see Elijah Muhammad. Dr. Ghazi’s friends told him that he was crazy, that he would have to go into a ‘‘very dangerous neighborhood.’’ But he told them, ‘‘A false prophet doesn’t come every day. I just want a glimpse of him.’’ He arrived at Elijah Muhammad’s house where he was met by Fruit of Islam body guards. They told him, ‘‘The Mes- senger is speaking to the ladies, come back tomorrow.’’ Dr. Ghazi came back with five other men. All of them were escorted in to sit at the table with Elijah Muhammad. After their meal, Dr. Ghazi asked Elijah Muhammad a series of questions that challenged his teachings. ‘‘Islam doesn’t distinguish between black and white so how come you say that blacks will receive salvation and whites be condemned?’’ He recalled Elijah Muhammad’s answer: ‘‘When God made the dough to make the human being, the devil urinated, and the urine went into part of the dough, so God separated the impure part out to make the white people, and then the black people he made from the pure part
...
. The nature of the white person is the devil because of those impurities. Any white person who accepts Islam, he acts against his own nature. He can be Muslim, he can be saved, but it’s not his nature. The black person, if he is not a Muslim, he’s going against his nature. The black person has to be Muslim so I’m bringing the black person back to his true nature.’’