Reflections on Black History Month

Black History Month should be of interest to all Muslims, especially in America. It is estimated that up to 20% of Africans enslaved in the Americas were Muslims. [1] In some sectors, such as the coast of Carolina, Georgia, and parts of Virginia, the percentage of Muslims in the slave population may have approached 40%. [2] The fact that the random search of an African-American, Alex Haley, for his roots led him to a Muslim village in West Africa is indicative of the widespread presence of the Muslim population here slaves in the Americas.

At this critical moment in the history of our country, it is important for Muslims, whose legitimate existence in this country is threatened in some circles, to connect to our roots American Muslims. As Muslims, our history in this country began with the advent of Syrians, Lebanese, Albanians, or Yemenis at the turn of the 20 th century onwards. It began with the lives of those courageous African Muslim slaves, whose blood, sweat and tears have helped build this country. Their struggle is our struggle and our struggle should be seen as a continuation of them.

In identifying with those African Muslims, we must not forget that they were part of a larger community, a community that has evolved for nearly fifty million Afro-Americans. The struggle of that community, his pain, perseverance, triumphs and defeats, can not be separated from the struggle of its Muslim members. If we as Muslims are moved by the suffering of our fellow believers who have been exposed to the dehumanizing cruelty of a vicious system, we should similarly be moved by the plight of their African brothers and sisters not Muslims who have suffered the same injustices.

We also need to be moved to work with unwavering conviction to present, within the parameters of our organizational missions, the vestiges of institutional racism that continues to disproportionately affect African-Americans and other racial minorities in this country. One statistic alone should be enough to warn of the presence of this kind of racism - 50% of this nation of 2.3 million individuals incarcerated come from its 12% of African-American population. Similarly discouraging statistics are found in areas ranging from access to higher education, teenage pregnancy, high dropout rates, juvenile homicides, and many "quality of death" other indicators.

African American Muslims have a special responsibility to address this kind of racism. In starting to do that, we can take our lead from our brothers freed slaves. Despite their lack of freedom, many of them were never "owned". This fact is strikingly clear in their biographies increasingly widespread. People like bin Ayyub Sulayman (Job Ben Solomon), Ibrahim Abdul-Rahman, and Yarrow Mamout, to name a few, did not allow the ravages of slavery to rob them of their dignity, honor, or their human value.

As we strive to address the shortcomings of society, in race relations and other areas, we must do so with dignity, honor, grace, and with minds free and open. Those of us who come from minority communities historically oppressed of this land, must resist the temptation to allow the triumvirate of anger, a sense of victimhood and vengeance to distort our ability to calmly evaluate and then pragmatically address the many problems we face. When such a distortion occurs, delusional thinking and irrational policy usually result.

One of the biggest disappointments is challenging us to see our situation parallel that of our brothers and sisters in foreign lands governed by repressive regimes. Consult our situation as parallel to them we are tempted to see the paradigm of resistance that governs their struggles as valid for our situation. This assessment is flawed for several reasons.

First of all, most significantly the "Third World" liberation struggles pitted against oppressive majorities of oppressed minorities. In this country, most significant segments of the white and nonwhite minorities are not as severely affected by structural violence or institutional racism, they see aggressive or even violent challenges to the status quo as legitimate forms of political expression.

Secondly, alternative means of political expression, available in this country, are not available in most "Third World" dictatorships or authoritarian regimes. Consequently, the mechanisms by which Jews, by way of example, once a minority despised and humiliated, were able to favor arise within the system are not available in the countries mentioned above. Although some progress has been facilitated by their ability to benefit from their "white", most is due to hard work and effective planning. Similarly, the progress made by African-Americans in affirmative action, the progress that has been progressively eroded, no doubt, he could not hope to be part of the oppressed minorities in many other countries. If we see this reality as it truly empowering or ultimately cooptive not negate the fact that they exist, and as long as they exist, are powerful mechanisms for shock appeal and feasibility of radical challenges to the status quo.

Thirdly, while the feasibility of a challenge aggressive, violent or even the status quo may be questionable in a small minority-based, "third world" dictatorship, in a society so large, complex, varied, and, ultimately, politically conservative as the United States, these challenges would be used to justify harsh repressive measures which serve to make even the mildest forms of dissent not acceptable. As presented here in hypothetical terms, this is actually a recurring lesson that American history has taught us.

The story of the "third world" revolutionary change is no more encouraging. The Algerian experience is illustrative of the revolutionary legacy of violence in Africa. Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth, its analysis of the Algerian struggle for decolonization, decolonization has seen violence as a cathartic agent, which would have created a new man freed. The sad reality created by that violence is documented by Fanon in the last chapter of his work. It led to a litany of mental problems that Fanon, a psychiatrist expert, documented all too well, screw that wreaked the leaders of the nationalist struggle were unprepared for the repair. In addition, thirty years later, the heirs of the nationalist regime that the revolution brought to power would be all too willing participants in a bloodbath that would rival anything the former French colonizers had visited the Algerian people.

Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, noted that once a spiral of violence begins, it operates on its own internal logic. Injustice leads to revolt. Revolt repression induces. Repression leads to more injustice, which in turn promotes more radical forms of rebellion. It is therefore induce more severe forms of repression. This spiral continues, uninterrupted. The challenge for theologians in this age, when the destructive potential of war is so great that it threatens the very existence of our world, is to develop strategies that can significantly improve our collective well-being peacefully altering mechanisms of structural violence and racism institutionalized. Muslim theologians, if we really are "heirs of the prophets", peace and blessings of God upon them, should not shy away from this challenge. However, in an attempt to answer, we must resist the temptation to resurrect the failed strategies, ideas and stale-dated methods of an ineffective "Third World" revolution.

On the other hand, we must not allow ourselves to be divorced from the struggles of less fortunate members of the human family. In a not too distant past, when standards of political correctness were more closely associated with the truth and not selfish and narrow political agendas, John Kennedy said: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." The great theologian Reinhold Niebubr said: "In the social struggle that are both on the side of privilege or need." If these two white Americans, who were "privileged" in every sense of that expression a bit 'trivial, may support the need to challenge oppressive social relations, would be an unforgivable travesty for our voices silenced.

The question for us is: "How can we better address the mechanisms of oppression in front of us, and those in front of our co-religionists in many forts scattered all over the world?" To answer this question, we can obtain valuable information from the lives and struggles of our African ancestors Muslims. Superior learning was the key to the liberation of Job Ben Solomon. Here is a sign for us. As American Muslims we were lucky enough to reside in the most intellectually dynamic society in history. In addition, the command of prime importance in our religion is to read. We should continue with enthusiasm the mandate created by these individual facts and push ourselves to become more educated the community on Earth-in religious and worldly knowledge. Thus, the miracles that were so clearly manifested in the life of Job Ben Solomon surely bless our lives.

The dignity, the nobility, the erudition of Ibrahim Abd 'al-Rahman, qualities that earned him the epithet of "Prince", were instrumental in his liberation from the chains of slavery. Our day is witnessing the constant degradation of our collective human dignity. There should be a community whose dignity and nobility easily impresses all who deal with us, and especially a community that ethics is a reflection of the true value and the depth of the prophetic teachings. Unfortunately, as Muslims, in general, we have dishonored the prophetic legacy was entrusted to us. Our ethics often reflect a utilitarian approach to life. If something is effective, and effectiveness for many of us have ever seen in terms of money or security, we must find a way to provide it with religious sanction. This approach can ensure our prosperity in the short term, but it will never open the hearts and minds of the masses of people to Islam.

Our ancestors attracted people to Islam and conquered lands with the loftiness of their character and ethics. We often reject decent strangers who come among us. At the height of American slavery movable, Mamout Yarrow, a Muslim elder who had earned his freedom, so impressed the artist Charles Wilson Peale with his dignity, nobility, and grace that he, who painted six portraits George Washington, was inspired to paint Mamout. Who among us would have inspired an artist at the same place today?

Is not the purpose of these meditations to suggest a specific program of empowerment. Power, as the Qur'an states emphatically, is God's will to give to whom He chooses. [3] However, a deeper knowledge of God, self, and society certainly yield insights conducive to compliance with the ways of the Lord God has decided to invite His grace that enables a particular community. Moreover, the story says that the dignity, nobility of character and courage are the essential features of those who were able to take the often unpopular stands that helped usher in fundamental change from the will of God

Speaking of unpopular positions, we're not just talking about those that can put us in opposition to an unjust power structure, but in the same way that we can put those in opposition to our race, tribe, class, or even a member of our faith. Popularity has never been a prerequisite for greatness. However, the record of a great woman can definitely make it popular for those whose lives are improved by his acts.

In conclusion, Islam calls us to be bigger than what the world has given us. If the world has made us members of a race "disadvantaged", class, ethnicity, or gender, the world wants us to be dehumanized by the resulting anger, sense of victimhood, and a quest for vengeance. The collective weight of these forces may easily lead to a loss of hope dehumanizing. For our ancestors enslaved African Muslims in this world, Islam has always been a source of hope, dignity, and for many, as we said, the key to their liberation. For those who have never escaped the shackles of physical slavery, Islam has provided the basis for their growth above the dehumanizing system of movable property. In the words of Dr. A. Sylviane Diouf, "The Muslims of Africa may have been, in America, the slaves of Christian masters, but their minds were free. They were the servants of Allah." [4] While they were so we should be too.

[1] See A. Sylvianne Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims enslaved in America (New York, London: New York University Press, 1998), p. 48.

[2] Diouf, p. 47.

[3] See Al-Qur'an 3:26-27.

[4] Diouf, 210.

This article is excerpted from the book of Imam Zayd, scattered images: Reflections of an American Muslim.

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