Tumbled Thoughts On American Muslim Life

The Decline of American Muslim Indigenous Communities

Imam Luqman, former Philadelphia Imam, has written an engaging post on his blog, The Lotus Tree Blog. Imam Luqman addresses a blight currently plaguing the indigenous Muslim community:

Here are the facts; 80% of American Muslim converts are African American, and African Americans are dead last in virtually every socio-economic category that measures wellbeing; unemployment, access to health care, illiteracy, education, single parent households, broken families, incarceration rates, diabetes, hypertension, home ownership, and infant mortality, and the list goes on and on.

Indigenous African Americans have been converting to Islam for decades; however, the phenomena of massive and continuous conversion amongst African Americans to Islam has not  evolved generationally into indigenous Muslim families, extended families or home grown institutions that reflect our faith and it’s principles, and serve the best interests of the new Muslim. Why is this important? Well, it matters because as each subsequent generation of practicing Muslims evolve within the family, the moral and religious values of Islam takes hold and are reinforced within the family unit and the extended family.

I wrote a response to his post, with the comments below:

As-Salaamu ‘alaykum Imam Luqman.  You have drawn our attention to some disparaging numbers and statistics.  As a native of Philadelphia, you are all too familiar with these realities.  The question is, when is Muslim leadership in Philadelphia and points beyond – and here I mean Blackamerican Muslim leadership – going to address these disparities?  As we spoke when you were here, so much of the indigenous imagination has been colonized by a make believe Islam, an Islam that has never really existed anywhere, and in doing so, has syphoned off an incredible amount of our creative energy.  We no longer look to solve our existential crises with Islam, but instead, actually seek to perpetuate them in the name of Islam.  We lack faith in ourselves: We’ve come to doubt blackness and Americaness as equally viable contenders to the authenticity of Islam.  It will require, as Dr. Jackson said, a paradigm shift, though without a pair-of-dimes to rub together (a la your aforementioned “socio-economic” discrepancy), that shift is going to remain aloof and unobtainable.

Again, I point to the same question: What occupies our imagination as a group?  It is not attacking truancy, it is not attacking joblessness, it is not attacking a moral contrariness on a social level; it is none of these.  It is occupied instead with putting all efforts into hyper-individualistic attempts to gain a short cut path to glory: “I don’t have to address any of my personal and social ills to be a Muslim, I’ll just put on a special costume and voilá!, I’m a bona fide Muslim!”   We have become so deficit in our self-esteem that we are desperate to cling to that which will provide us a sense of identity.  What is most even more tragic is that these feelings are not blameless; to the opposite, they’re quite natural.  As a people who had their languages, their cultures, their religions, their histories taken from them, while being kept in the status of an irrevocable “other”, it is no wonder that so many of us sought an identity-based redemption in Islam.  I do believe that there is something comprehensively holistic in Islam for us (and for all people for that matter), but when identity trumps devotion, when identity becomes a tool to coerce an articulation of Islam that is, as a first priority, pleasing to our nafs, and not as an effort to please God, then we wind up with what we have today: The verge of a secularized, nihilistic bastardization of Islam.  The blowback from this is the continued descent into existential oblivion.

When we look at the immigrant Muslim community, we can see that they too are fraught with challenges.  However, the one thing that works in their favor is the family unit.  While not a not a monolith and all discrepancies withstanding, immigrant Muslims succeed in the areas we do not primarily because of their family units and how that unit functions as a safety for members of the family.  Their families have stigmas which demand a certain amount of appeasement on the part of all family members.  This is not to foist immigrant Muslims up as the paragon of Muslim family achievement, but there are many important lessons that might be learned; from them, and from other religious and ethnic communities as well.  Until we demand the best from amongst our own families, we will continue to produce the same results, albeit, on a downward slope.

In a recent set of notes from a gathering of various Muslim scholars about Muslim life in America, one of the under riding themes was that of loneliness and isolation.  There are so many Muslims who long for a healthy community life as well as a healthy private life.  We can see now that our numbers for divorce are coming into line with those of the dominant culture.  We are coming to see that while we are Muslim, we are not immune to the effects of modernity, of which one of its primary characteristics is loneliness and isolation.  This is not simply backwash of what’s in the drinking water; it is a byproduct of modernity’s mechanisms: They churn night and day to produce human beings, who at the cost of all else, become individuals.  We see this manifested in our pop culture, which relishes and rewards “the rebel”, the “cowboy”, the “self-made man or woman.”  Modernity is, at its heart, anti-community and anti-human.  It makes of Bani Adam isolated blips on 18% grey screen, individuals floating through life, latching on to this or that object or ideology which can temporarily deaden the angst of nihilism.

So we must strive to find a way to build not just communities, for that has become another meaningless plastic word, but lived-in communities, that raise and build and support and love!, real God-fearing, God-loving people, who strive both within and without, for God’s sake and in hope of God’s Mercy.  With so many of us spread out, especially the link-minded ones, how do we begin to tackle this quandary?

Your thoughts for a penny.

Paying the Price For Our Lack of Vision

One of the most memorable lines from the Star Wars franchise was Emperor Palpatine’s cruel admonishment of Luke when he cackled, “you shall pay the price for your lack of vision”.  This chastisement was swiftly followed by searing bolts of blue lightening. If it weren’t for the timely intervention of Luke’s at-one-time sinister father, Darth Vader, Luke may have met a very unfortunate fate.  In what has also become now a cruel twist of fate, American Muslims are now paying their own price for lack of vision, as the United States now increasingly turns on Muslims, demonizing and terrorizing them, not unlike this recent incident in New York, where a mosque was attacked by a small pack of marauding teens. Similarly to Luke’s blunder, American Muslims simply did not adequately prepare, in this case, for life in America. Where is our Darth Vader in our time of despair?

Sadly, Islam in American, in its heretical inception—referred to as the First Resurrection via The Nation of Islam—did a far better job of indigenizing Islam.  The Second Resurrection [Islam 2.0?], consisted of both immigrant Muslims and new orthodox converts, who were initially unconcerned with the dominant culture’s views of Islam, and thus chose to either live anonymous lives in their new found homes—vis-a-vie through the door of whiteness—or in the case of Blackamerican Muslims, chose to live new lives that had little to do with the existential realities as colored folks living in a post-Jim Crow America. Both groups lived in a fantasy; a bubble.  Of particular interest to immigrant Muslims, whiteness has been the gateway that many if not most immigrants have successfully integrated into the American social landscape.  This created a dichotomy in American Islam in which immigrant Muslims increasingly turned a blind eye to the underside of assimilation: whiteness, and all of the unearned privilidges it entails. Blackamerican Muslims, having no such option, opted to simply limp along, paroting their immigrant counterparts without the Players Club incentives. Much to the dismay of [immigrant] Muslims, the 9/11 attacks did away with any hopes of Muslims being considered white/American, and thus we arrive back at our “price” for “lack of vision”. In another twist of ironic fate, blackness and its legacy of civil rights engagement [i.e., its holy protest against white domination and supremacy] seems to be the last bastion of hope for both communities. It is the only social modality that is seen and recognized as viably America: out of immigrant and indigenous Muslims, it’s the only one that’s socially acceptable, if not preferred. Perhaps if immigrant Muslims had not uncritically flocked to the banner of whiteness [I can hear Admiral Akbar shouting now, “it’s a trap” - or “it’s a twap”, however you prefer your phonetics] and Blackamerican Muslims had not been so quick to abondon blackness, we might very well be in a completely different situation today.

The Nation of Islam, and subsequently its splinter group, led by the courageous Warith Deen Muhammad, charted a vision of Islam [by Islam here, I mean as it was socially expressed by the NOI, and not by the normal rigors of classical Muslim theology] that sought to place the cares, concerns, and proclivities of [Black] American Muslims at the heart of its agenda.  And while the WD movement has also fallen on hard times, it still alludes to the crux of the current social predicament.

In many ways, Muslims in America were afforded a tremendous blessing post-9/11. Public sentiment towards Muslims was somewhat tarnished but by and large, the cloud of negative perceptions of Islam were held at bay, only occasionally making their way in to the public arena.  In fact, there was a notable calling amongst non-Muslims that the 9/11 attacks were perpetuated by a few terribly misguided souls and that Muslims and Islam were not to blame.  American Muslims, instead of capitalizing on this opportunity to push forward efforts to indigenize [not assimilate] themselves to their social, cultural and political landscapes, simply rested on their laurels.  Both sides of the indigenous/immigrant isle have been equally to blame.  Native-born Muslims still continued to favor a brand of Islam that was more about cultural acting than getting down to brass tax and most immigrant Muslims were so devastated at the quandary of being abandoned on the doorstep of whiteness that most of the efforts out of that community have been mostly assimilationist at best, if not simply down-right floundering.  So again, where is our Darth Vader in our time of need?

Simply put, it is my belief that if Muslims do not solve this issue [if it is already not too late], then Islam will suffer a fate worse than persecution: irrelevancy.  And by issue, I mean to address what is at the heart of mainstream America’s growing resentment towards Islam. I believe this to be mainly aesthetic: people simply do not like the way Islam looks and feels as a result of not knowing what Islam’s story is, or more precisely, what the American Muslims’ story is. And American Muslims have failed in telling their own story because they have yet to craft one. Narrative is crucial to survival in America; if you don’t have one, you don’t belong. Perhaps it’s not too late to stop, reflect, and take stock of our condition, our situation.  Let us look at examples from our common cultural past that have succeeded: the Nation of Islam as well as the American Jewish community, who have critically understood the necessity of story and narrative as a primary means of not only survival but also of flourishing. To delay any longer would be akin to another favorite Star Wars quote: “almost there … almost there …” – and we all know what happened next after that.

• For further reading, also see: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/coalition-of-african-american-muslims-caam-responds-to-controversy-surrounding-park-51-project-101911568.html - hat tip to Tariq.
• Cross-posted at Muslim Matters and the Manrilla Blog.
• African-American Muslims: Left Out of the National Conversation on Islam, an Illume Magazine piece.

Re: Tea Party - Truth Behind 911 Mosque

From: teaparty@teaparty.org

On: Friday, August 20, 2010 8:46 PM

The American people find articulating their concern over the proposed Mosque near the sight of the 911 attacks problematic. On one hand, many view the First Amendment a shield of protection for religious freedom, on the other hand, some view the First Amendment as providing a haven for religions with a hostile political agenda wrapped in cleric’s robes.

Is it any wonder that there is so much confusion on this matter? Most Citizens of the United States have never experienced the driving and all consuming force of a Theocratic government with its crushing Theo-political tenet.

The American religious experience is the usual Sunday morning ‘hymn singing’; passing the offering plate, an off tempo choir and the occasional neighborhood revival. The ‘Church supper and bake sale mentality’ gives way to a much colder and more formidable view of religious practices, which are not only unfamiliar, but also antithetical to the ‘Sunday Go To Meeting’ crowd.

The United States Judaic/Christian roots are being ‘God Shocked’ by the concept that a religion can and does demand world domination by any means, including violence if necessary.

The Koran states: Sura 61:9 He it is Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islamic monotheism) to make it victorious over all (other) religions even though the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah and His Messenger Muhammad) hate (it). (Hilali and Khan, The Noble Qur’an, Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996)

Allah’s Messenger said: “By Him (Allah) in Whose Hand my soul is, surely the son of Mary [Isa (Jesus)] will shortly descend amongst you people (Muslims), and will judge mankind justly by the Law of the Quran (as a just ruler) and will break the Cross and kill pigs and abolish the Jizyah [a tax] ….” (Bukhari 3:2222) .

The growing confusion among Ministers and their Congregations over the nature of legitimate Islamic worship and the practice of Taqiyya[1] is causing serious questions regarding the constitutionally protected practice of religion, if that religion is detrimental to the welfare and domestic tranquility of the very nation whose constitution protects it.

The emerging question is: Should the first amendment protect the practice of a religion which has a hostile political agenda wrapped in cleric’s robes? Should the U.S. Constitution protect a religion whose focus is converting the United States from a Democratic Republic into a Theocracy lead by religious cleric’s who are antithetical to what made this nation great and what keeps it great? Is this the change America should have or needs?

How can the Citizenry demarcate a concept which holds the well established fact that millions of the Islamic faith have called for a Holy Jihad and thereby demand the complete annihilation of the west? Yet, this same Citizenry is expected to open their arms to that very same religion, welcoming them as friends, protecting them with the same Constitutional protection Synagogues and Churches have enjoyed for over 234 years.

To make matters worse, this same Citizenry is expected to grant permission to build a Mosque on American hallowed ground, thereby, offering sanctuary and worship for the same religion which was instrumental in the 911 attacks.

Will it become necessary for the courts to hand down a litmus test for religion? If a religion passes the litmus test, then and only then that religion is welcome and protected?

However, if the religion in question fails the litmus test… will that be reason enough to expel the failed theological expression from our shores?

Should ‘We The People” give haven to religions whose main purpose it to install a system of Theo-political colonization? Shall the American people welcome with open arms a religion having untold millions of members demanding the beheading of western infidels? Shall the People of America grant safe haven to those who cheerfully work for the day Israel, the United States and all other non-Islamic states are finally eradicated off the face of the earth?

These bothersome questions are not ones of religious rights, but rather of the will of the people. Will the people tolerate everything?

Will ‘blanket tolerance’ be the downfall of the Judaic/Christian basis of the American society?

Is there nothing which will compel We The People to stand up and say: “It stops here and no further,” shall this be America’s crucifixion?

Or, shall the American people create a feathered bed for all those who plan our demise, who work diligently for our destruction and for those who will celebrate the day America will be no more.

Stephen Eichler J.D.

America’s Legal Analyst

[1] The practice of precautionary dissimulation whereby believers may conceal their faith when under threat, persecution or compulsion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya

This is nothing other than the most vile, most virulent form of white racism this country has been known for. “Judaic/Christian” has become a ghost word for “white”. I have no doubt that this terror tactics on the part of the Tea Party will indeed inject and instill fear in many Muslims, especially immigrant Muslims, but for myself, an indigenous, Blackamerican Muslim who was born here, you’re only fooling yourself. I encourage Muslims to stand up against this form of terror and tyrany and speak out against this woeful injustice. As me to give up my right as a Black man to worship as I choose? We have a response in Black vernacular: it starts with an “n” and ends with, “you must be crazy”.