are blacks less islamophobic?

The Root: Is There Less Anti-Islamic Sentiment Among Blacks?
Recent data about how black and white Americans view the New York City mosque controversy suggest that this is true, but opinions vary as to why.

aside from the whole quran-burning issue, some other reasons why afghans might be less than totally pro-american...

Huffington Post: U.S. Soldiers Allegedly Killed Afghan Civilians, Kept Body Parts As Trophies

muslims and islam were part of twin towers life

To be honest, the more I study and reflect on the "Ground Zero Mosque" issue the more difficulty I have accepting or respecting the whole "sensitivity" argument. First of all, the 9/11 families and victims organizations don't all speak with one voice and several of them (like September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and Not in Our Name) are opposed to war and Islamophobia. Secondly, if people can tolerate strip clubs and pizza places on "sacred ground" they should be able to tolerate Muslims practicing their religion there. But thirdly, the never stated, and therefore unquestioned, assumption behind the opposition to the Park 51 project is that all Muslims in the US should be equated with the terrorists behind 9/11.

One of the more persuasive counter-arguments (I think) lies in also pointing out the extent to which Muslims are and have been an integral part of American life. Not only does the nearby African Burial Ground hold Muslim bodies. Not only was that part of lower Manhattan historically "Little Syria". Not only is there already a mosque there for Muslims who work nearby. Not only were there Muslims who were victims and heroic responders to the World Trade Center attack. On top of all that, the World Trade Center originally had a Muslim prayer space for the Muslims who were an integral part of the life of the community.

see also
Planet Grenada: "refudiating" islamophobia: park 51 / cordoba house / the (not-really-at)-ground zero mosque


Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
New York Times
September 10, 2010

Sometime in 1999, a construction electrician received a new work assignment from his union. The man, Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, was told to report to 2 World Trade Center, the southern of the twin towers.

In the union locker room on the 51st floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam went through a construction worker’s version of due diligence. In the case of an emergency in the building, he asked his foreman and crew, where was he supposed to reassemble? The answer was the corner of Broadway and Vesey.

Over the next few days, noticing some fellow Muslims on the job, Mr. Abdus-Salaam voiced an equally essential question: “So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.

He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.

On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.

Leaping down the stairs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he had been installing ceiling speakers for a reinsurance company on the 49th floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam had a brief, panicked thought. He didn’t see any of the Muslims he recognized from the prayer room. Where were they? Had they managed to evacuate?

He staggered out to the gathering place at Broadway and Vesey. From that corner, he watched the south tower collapse, to be followed soon by the north one. Somewhere in the smoking, burning mountain of rubble lay whatever remained of the prayer room, and also of some of the Muslims who had used it.

Given the vitriolic opposition now to the proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks from ground zero, one might say something else has been destroyed: the realization that Muslim people and the Muslim religion were part of the life of the World Trade Center.

Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition

“We weren’t aliens,” Mr. Abdus-Salaam, 60, said in a telephone interview from Florida, where he moved in retirement. “We had a foothold there. You’d walk into the elevator in the morning and say, ‘Salaam aleikum,’ to one construction worker and five more guys in suits would answer, ‘Aleikum salaam.’ ”

One of those men in suits could have been Zafar Sareshwala, a financial executive for the Parsoli Corporation, who went to the prayer room while on business trips from his London office. He was introduced to it, he recently recalled, by a Manhattan investment banker who happened to be Jewish.

“It was so freeing and so calm,” Mr. Sareshwala, 47, said in a phone conversation from Mumbai, where he is now based. “It had the feel of a real mosque. And the best part is that you are in the epicenter of capitalism — New York City, the World Trade Center — and you had this island of spiritualism. I don’t think you could have that combination anywhere in the world.”

How, when and by whom the prayer room was begun remains unclear. Interviews this week with historians and building executives of the trade center came up empty. Many of the Port Authority’s leasing records were destroyed in the towers’ collapse. The imams of several Manhattan mosques whose members sometimes went to the prayer room knew nothing of its origins.

Yet the room’s existence is etched in the memories of participants like Mr. Abdus-Salaam and Mr. Sareshwala. Prof. John L. Esposito of Georgetown University, an expert in Islamic studies, briefly mentions the prayer room in his recent book “The Future of Islam.”

Moreover, the prayer room was not the only example of Muslim religious practice in or near the trade center. About three dozen Muslim staff members of Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the north tower, used a stairwell between the 106th and 107th floors for their daily prayers.

Without enough time to walk to the closest mosque — Masjid Manhattan on Warren Street, about four blocks away — the waiters, chefs, banquet managers and others would lay a tablecloth atop the concrete landing in the stairwell and flatten cardboard boxes from food deliveries to serve as prayer mats.

During Ramadan, the Muslim employees brought their favorite foods from home, and at the end of the daylight fast shared their iftar meal in the restaurant’s employee cafeteria.

“Iftar was my best memory,” said Sekou Siby, 45, a chef originally from the Ivory Coast. “It was really special.”

Such memories have been overtaken, though, by others. Mr. Siby’s cousin and roommate, a chef named Abdoul-Karim Traoré, died at Windows on the World on Sept. 11, as did at least one other Muslim staff member, a banquet server named Shabir Ahmed from Bangladesh.

Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter, attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died. Far from being viewed as objectionable, the service was conducted with formal support from city, state and federal authorities, who arranged for buses to transport imams and mourners to Warren Street.

There, within sight of the ruins, they chanted salat al-Ghaib, the funeral prayer when there is not an intact corpse.

“It is a shame, shame, shame,” Mr. Mamdouh, 49, said of the Park51 dispute. “Sometimes I wake up and think, this is not what I came to America for. I came here to build this country together. People are using this issue for their own agenda. It’s designed to keep the hate going.”

the end of the covenant

God's Covenant, Judaism and Interfaith Marriage by Paul Golin starts off as a pretty unsurprising review of Jewish views on inter-religious marriage on the occasion of the Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky nuptuals. But I was definitely surprised by the second half the article which started to swim in much deeper waters:

In the 1970s, when radical modern-Orthodox thinker Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg grappled with the full implications of the Holocaust, he concluded that God's withdrawal from earthly affairs and failure to protect His chosen people meant, quite dramatically, that "the covenant was broken." However, Rabbi Greenberg suggested that "the Jewish people was so in love with the dream of redemption that it volunteered to carry on with its mission." And in fact those who took up the "voluntary covenant," as he called it, were even greater than those who acted "only out of command."

Personally I found the above intriguing for a number of reasons. First, while many (but not necessarily all) Christians, Muslims, Bahais, etc. might readily admit that God's covenant with the Jewish people is no longer in effect, it seems unusual (perhaps even contradictory) to find an Orthodox Jew making that claim.

Secondly, as horrible as the Holocaust was it really more theologically significant than other great tragedies in Jewish history like the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Captivity, or the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent diaspora?

Thirdly, the quote serves as a cautionary "tale", the article makes me wonder if Muslims attitudes towards the sharia will ever become comparable to Jewish attitudes towards the halakhah?

jihad and the modern world

Jihad and the Modern World by Sherman Jackson is a candid, and at the same time thoughtful and nuanced paper discussing the concept of jihad in Islam. While not denying that jihad has a role in Islamic law and affirming that the Muslim ummah has a right to self-defense, Prof. Jackson argues, with support from the Quran and later classical scholarship, that peaceful co-existence between the Muslim and non-Muslim world is possible.

book talk: the african caliphate

A discussion of The African Caliphate : The Life, Works, and Teaching of Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio (1754 - 1817) by Ibraheem Sulaiman

Summary: This scholarly work focuses on the establishment in 1809, in what is today Northern Nigeria, of the celebrated Sokoto caliphate, which may well have been the last re-establishment, anywhere in the world, of Islam in its entirety, comprising all its many and varied dimensions.

dr. jackson issues a challenge

Dr. Sherman Jackson, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at University of Michigan and author of several pioneering books, including “Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering,” has issued a challenge for supporters of IMAN (the Inner-City Muslim Action Network based in Chicago) in these final days of Ramadan. In a generous commitment, Dr. Jackson has agreed to match, dollar for dollar, all donations received online until the end of our Heal the ‘Hood campaign. Read more about the challenge here.

the rise of islamic rap

The Rise of Islamic Rap by Peter Mandaville focuses on how South Asian Muslim youth in the UK have chosen to express themselves using Black American musical forms. The article goes on to view this movement in the context of increasing cooperation between young Muslims and left-leaning movements (the World Social Forums, the Green Party, alter-globalization, etc.)

planet grenada and islam and hip-hop

eid in cuba 2009

Dripping River Water: Eid in Cuba 2009 (part 1) by Maceo Cabrera Estevez

female imams blaze trail among china's muslims

NPR: Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China's Muslims by Louisa Lim

I wish that I (and the Muslim community generally) had been more aware of this history back when Amina Wadud was making waves with the whole issue of female-led prayers. Basically, they have had female imams for about 100 years in China (along with female mosques which developed organically from Quranic schools for girls). It might be interesting to compare Amina Wadud's approach to female empowerment with what the Chinese Muslims have done. Wadud's move was arguably more radical and uncompromising but also marginalized as non-orthodox. The Chinese Muslim community, on the other hand, seems to have found spaces within fairly traditional parameters for female leadership in the community.

see also:
quran and woman

on joe (joseph) stack

The article Terrorism: The Most Meaningless and Manipulated Word by Glenn Greenwald takes a look at the Joseph Stack incident and uses it to underline some of the hypocrisy behind how the term "terrorist" is used today (to delegitimize Muslims).

When I first read about Joseph Stack flying a plane into an Austin office building which housed the local IRS office I pretty much saw him as a Tea Party terrorist. After reading the Joseph Stack Manifesto I have to admit that he does have some left-wing elements to his "ideology" but on balance he seems more like an ordinary "Joe" who has had a series of frustrating Kafka-esque experiences with the bureaucratic IRS. At the same time,there do seem to be some tea party types embracing him as an American hero after the fact.

In any case, even if this particular incident isn't the responsibility of someone clearly in the Tea Party camp, there have certainly been other warning signs that anti-Obama conservative backlash has been becoming more and more aggressive and has the potential for moving in violent directions. (see pray for obama and the murder of george tiller)

See also: I Am Not Saying Joe Stack Is A Teabagger, But He’s A Little Teaish By Casey Gane-McCalla

blue-eyed devil

I just recently finished Michael Muhammad Knight's book Blue-eyed Devil: A Road Odyssey Through Islamic America put out by Soft Skull Press. The book is definitely worth reading but I think I would have felt better about it if I had checked it out of the library instead of buying it at Border's. The work is essentially a travelogue documenting Knight's journey's across the United States on what amounts to an Islam-in-America sightseeing tour. To be honest, I was massively impressed by the breadth of the book but he left me wishing for more depth.

He visits the annual ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) convention (twice) where he claims to have stink-palmed Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam) and Siraj Wahaj. He goes to the tombs of Elijah Muhammad, W.D. Fard and Alexander Muhammad Webb (probably the first white American convert to Islam). He meets with Azreal (one of the first white Five Percenters who followed "Father Allah" Clarence 13x). He builds with other Five Percenters in Harlem/Mecca. He goes to the compound of the followers of Malachi Z. York (or whatever he is calling himself now). He attends PMU's female-led prayer. Has dinners with Farid Esack and Irshad Manji. He has tea at Peter Lamborn Wilson / Hakim Bey's house. He visits Malcolm Shabazz (Malcolm X /El Hajj Malik Shabazz's grandson) in prison. And throughout he stops at both Sunni and Shia masjids as well as meeting with various followers of Elijah Muhammad.

For me, the most valuable aspect of the book was its discussion of who Fard was and what happened to him after he went into "occultation". Some other important points are his account of Malcolm Shabazz's (sad) life and Knight's behind-the-scenes insights on the "Progressive Muslim" movement. The rest of the book is well-written and interesting in its own way but often feels like being forced to watch a slide show from someone else's summer vacation.

obama speech in cairo

Huffington Post: Obama Speech In Cairo (VIDEO, Full Text)

many muslim women on the ballot this november

MIAMI (AP)

Jamilah Nasheed, an African-American convert to Islam and Missouri Democratic state representative, is one of just nine Muslim Americans in state legislatures nationwide, and the only woman, according to the alliance. She is almost certain to win re-election this year, and Muslim American women in California, Michigan and Minnesota are vying to join her.

Among them is Democrat Ferial Masry, who faces a tough race in her bid to represent a heavily Republican general assembly district near Los Angeles. The 59-year-old high school government and history teacher was born in Mecca but moved to Egypt when she was 10 so she could attend school, not an option for girls in Saudi Arabia at the time. She was a write-in candidate for the seat four years ago after the Democratic Party approached her.

She said no one expected the unknown "woman from Saudi Arabia with an accent" to do well, but she got almost 35 percent of the vote.

Farheen Hakeem, a 32-year-old activist and Green Party candidate for an open seat representing Minneapolis, first ran for mayor in 2005, then for a county commissioner seat. She lost both times.

"I was asked every question under the book," says Hakeem, who wears a head scarf and is of South Asian descent. People would grill her about Islam's treatment of women.

"If I'm so oppressed, how am I running for mayor? I'm still Muslim," she'd tell them. Now, she says, "People are like, 'Yeah, so what, she's Muslim.'"

Rashida Tlaib, an immigration lawyer from Michigan, never thought about running for office until after the terrorist attacks, when she said she saw the immigration system being used to target people of Middle Eastern descent and felt a responsibility to get involved.

After she worked on immigration reform, Tlaib was approached by the Michigan House floor leader, who wanted her to work for him, then later urged her to run for his seat. Tlaib was also recently tapped to be Barack Obama campaign's liaison to the Arab American and Muslim American communities.

Having won the primary in her heavily Democratic, majority Latino district, Tlaib will likely to join lawmakers in Lansing next session, and she looks forward to exposing them to Muslim holidays and traditions like fasting the month of Ramadan.

But Tlaib is quick to emphasize that she didn't run because she's Muslim American; it's just part of who she is. When she walked her district's neighborhoods, people were more interested in talking about crime and foreclosures than her unfamiliar name.

For entire article: On ballots this Nov: More Muslim American women

For a follow-up story on Rashida Tlaib (who won her race):
Michigan Legislature getting 1st female Muslim

the writings of yusef lateef

Blatantly stolen from Marc Manley over at The Manrilla Blog:

"From a small, self-published book entitled Something Else, jazz legend Yusef Lateef published an engaging book back in 1973. Yusef, who is known as a master multi-instrumentalist, is also a gifted writer, producing everything from short plays, essays, and poetry [as in this installment]. I have been putting segments of the book up on line. Here's the newest addition for your reading pleasure: http://www.manrilla.net/blog/reflections/

For more of Something Else, just visit the Blog and see the links under "Reads" on the right-hand side.

Enjoy"

Dr. Hip Slick: On Hipness
Ode To Pieter Bruegel
Reflections
Spiritual Aspects of Creating Music
The Constitution of Aesthetics, The Declaration of Genius and The Aesthetic Address
The Garments
The Outgame

obama and different religious communities

On religion factor, it's Obama for president by Douglas Todd

Let's cut to the almost-inevitable chase: How will Barack Obama do against John McCain in this fall's rumble for the U.S. presidency? With signs showing Hilary Clinton will have to drop out of the race, we're going to be left to determine whether the 46-year-old black Democrat or 71-year-old white Republican will climb into the powerful office. And that requires looking at the religion factor.

In American politics, which hugely affects Canada and the globe, religious loyalties deeply shape voters' preferences. But November will see a volatile election as things are changing dramatically on the U.S. religious front. The main reason is the country's large white evangelical bloc, worth more than one out of every four votes, won't be the all-important factor it was in bringing George W. Bush to power in 2000 and 2004.

If you harbour any doubts about how big a role religion plays in American politics, look at the blanket media coverage early this month of Obama's relationship to his boisterous former Chicago preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

For his part, McCain also has links with radical Christian leaders, even though they've not received the same level of attention. Still, McCain's opponents repeatedly question how the Arizona senator could embrace preacher John Hagee, who has denounced Catholicism as the "Great Whore" and believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment on "sinful" New Orleans. The latest polls show, overall, Obama holding onto about 47 per cent of Americans' support, compared to McCain's 43 per cent. Given that, let's break down how religious groups in the U.S. might lean come the fall ballot.

JEWS
American Jews generally lean to Democrats over Republicans. A Gallup poll showed Jews would vote for Obama over McCain by a margin of 61 per cent to 32 per cent. The trouble for Obama is Jews count for only one out of every 58 American voters.

MUSLIMS
The Muslim vote also goes strongly to Obama. Muslim leaders are actively questioning McCain's ties with Muslim-bashing Protestant preachers. However, Muslims make up only one out of every 166 Americans.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTANTS
These black Chrisians account for a significant seven per cent of Americans. They're a slam dunk for Obama. Polls show nine out of 10 will vote for their Harvard-educated Christian brother, a member of the United Church of Christ denomination.

THE NON-RELIGIOUS
Most Americans who say they're non-religious (16 per cent) strongly favour Obama over McCain.

WHITE EVANGELICALS
Eight years of Bush in the White House have changed the political shape of American evangelicalism. Many evangelicals are no longer making opposition to abortion and gay marriage their prime issues. Some Christian leaders are calling for evangelicals to stop being "useful fools" who blindly follow the Republican party no matter what. George Barna, a respected evangelical pollster, says white evangelical support for the Republican party is down to 29 per cent, a calamitous decline.

McCain, an Episcopalian who attends his wife's Baptist church, also has to deal with not being the first choice of the Religious Right, which had wanted Mike Huckabee. Aware of his lack of credibility among these hawks, McCain had argued the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for a century (a position he softened Thursday, May 15, 2008) and he's been singing the praises of some hard-line televangelists.

Meanwhile, even though Obama is pro-choice on abortion and homosexual rights and says the U.S. must get out of Iraq, many born-again Christians like him anyway, for talking passionately about the redemptive power Christ has had in his life. An informal poll by the leading evangelical youth magazine, Relevant, found evangelicals in their 20s would overwhelmingly vote for the black senator.

ROMAN CATHOLICS
Catholics are key because they make up the swing vote in U.S. elections. Comprising 24 per cent of Americans, Catholics have for the past nine elections consistently backed the winning horse for president. Though public polls have not yet directly compared how McCain and Obama would do among Catholics, McCain will likely be in trouble among them for embracing the combative Protestant Hagee, who took until May 13 to apologize for branding Catholicism a "cult."

There is little doubt events beyond religion will stir up voters before the November election, particularly if a conflict arises with Iran. But barring an earth-shattering political event, I'd place my bets, given religion-rooted trends, on Obama for president.

rap the casbah

"Born Here" - DAM


“Min Irhabi?” (“Who’s a Terrorist?”) - DAM



In These Times: Rap the Casbah by Michelle Chen

For more than a generation, hip-hop has drawn kids from neighborhoods around the world into the musical intersection of street culture and political consciousness. Now that common ground is making a mark in one of the globe’s most conflict-ridden areas: the Arab world.

(global) southern girl
verily, there is only one hip-hop umma
representin' the west (bank)
hisham aidi
daara j brings rap back to its african roots
al-ahram does a story on muslim hip-hop
more on muslims and hip-hop
afro-asian crosscurrents in contemporary hip-hop

puerto rican muslims or the people of islam?

From the blog: Ahl al-Hadith: Synergy Of Reason And Athaar: Puerto Rican Muslim Or The People Of Islam?: At The Feet Of Shaikh Pepe’ Negron The Poor Righteous Teacher From Philadelphia (In Honor Of My First Shaikh)

As a late teenager, deeply impressionable, culturally conscious and concerned, Pepe was moved by the struggle. Pepe saw many a strange thing in life but even late in life he was moved by the struggle. It was all about his people or so he said. It was all about his people. Pepe grew up in an immigrant (Puerto Rican) home located in the inner city of North Philadelphia. The section he matured in is known as the Barrio, which showcases the Bloque De Oro (the GoldenBlock) “5th street” and is flooded by Spanish speakers and spanglish often reverberates in the air over the songs of salsa music and gun shots and hip hop. As he narrates, the Bloque De Oro is historically noted as the location where big time drug dealers trafficked in large sums of cocaine and some marijuana. They masked illegal business with legitimate businesses like restaurants and video stores etc. to move their dirty money. Often they were these businesses were the targets of the city’s drug task force.

It was with “dirty money” that many found small fortunes, fortunes they failed to find once America’s factories were exported and inner city schools crumbled there was no way up the social ladder in teh face of poverty and discrimination. In the Barrio many ” went big time and got paid” they sold crack and heroin, two drugs of choice for the drug addict and the feds. Pepe says, for the addict these drugs were cheap and addictive and for the feds they made big money that needed to be seized. How many millions of dollars the feds seized in North Philadelphia has yet to be known to its inhabitants all victims of the war on drugs but one thing is sure the money never was returned to the school system nor did it create jobs for the poor. One thing is sure many of the drugs seized made their way back to the streets at the hand of corrupt cops in the early and late 90’s. (today America’s inner cities are seeing regentrification the question is are its inhabitants?)

This is why Pepe liked that the rapper KRS ONE would say things like “illegal business controls America” this line he said, speaks to reality ( a nasty reality that people suffered with their lives). With the new found fortunes the American gangsters amassed they built mansions in Puerto Rico and wrecked the Island by bringing corruption and by default extended the sway of the Columbian drug cartels over American streets and Latin American countries. But in the absence of economic ventures that created strong markets for the poor markets governed by the rule of law the underworld took over.

They killed us, Pepe said, by destroying the very fabric of community and life. Our youth poured out the Churches and into the streets and into the Prison system (and their blood poured too) there are few that made beyond 25 years of age and less who entered into the University. The Church became a place for funerals as the murders increased and the Barrio’s walls hosted an array of murals dedicated to the dead. Street corners were ornamented with candles and trinkets marked the spot where someone was killed, assassinated in the war on drugs.
The Barrio was marked by the acronym “R.I.P” except we never saw peace and it has yet to descend. Pepe chanted to me a mantra that I would never forget “they destroyed us and the Barrio our streets are covered with blood“.

Pepe claims his mother told him his family was a refugee family from Puerto Rico, forced to leave the Island because of trade agreements between the US and the Island leadership and this is how he saw himself a Puerto Rican Fugee. This feeling of refugee was dispelled when he realized America was home. Although he was always distrust that American troops colonized the Island during the Spanish-American war and Puerto Rico and today they perform military exercises in the Island’s waters that are said to be the cause for the high cancer rates in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Like Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans inhabit a limbo state as an identity (and hold on tight to Spanish as a resistance move that they learned when the US tried to force them to speak English) not from here and not from there. Pepe reconciled with this ambivalant state as many Puerto Ricans had done. But he never failed to remind me that Puerto Ricans fought for the Yankees and spilled their blood for America this he believed entitled Puerto Ricans, gave them a right to be citizens of los Estados Unidos.

He also felt that if it was not for the African American and Latinos that there would be no United States. He also declared staunchly ” we built this country with our blood and sweet”. My grandfather, he said labored in this country and my uncles fought for this country andI pay taxes young buck.

Pepe knew about things, facts and stuff, he reminded me of someone who preserved and narrated an oral tradition, a village elder. It was because of his peculiarities that the “young boys” who crowed the corners to peddle drugs for older drug dealers considered him odd. He only offered anecdotes and advice on life and not an opportunity for quick cash. Unfortunately, it was common for young men to sell drugs with the purpose of making enough money to take home to provide food for their parents, buy clothes and escape the stresses of life by getting high at night (smoke blunts and drink beer).

Pepe said: “it is depressing that they use the school yard to peddle “weight” (large sums of cocaine) but they never took benefit of the school. In scuffles with other thugs they fought for Potter Thomas School as territory and never came to know who is Potter Thomas (Thomas Potter :an Irish immigrantwho became wealthy) and why the school was erected in 1965.
Pepe knew about the struggle he said. He knew about the real story about Puerto Ricans and he felt their pain. He had an uncle that went to the caves in Puerto Rico and studied Taino drawings and religion and through his great uncle he connected with his ancestral roots and always recalled that he was native to the Americas. Pepe ranted about facts such as:

1.) the first sociologist in all the Americas was Puerto Rican ” Eugenio Maria De Hostos”
2.) Julia Maria De Burgos was one of the greatest poets of Perto Rico she settled in New York and year later a schools was named after her in Philadelphia but they never taught her poetry
3.) Many Puerto Ricans were literate and intellectuals possessed of degrees (Phd’s and MA’s) from European Universities in the early 1900’s.
4.) Muslims from Mali and Andalus inhabited Puerto Rico but were banned by the Catholic Church after the emergence of resistance movements against the Spanish were launched in cooperation with the Taino tribe that spanned from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic over to Cuba but popular historical records fail to report the detailed facts of these events the actual details are preserved in Spanish libraries and Church records after all the rebellions is one of the primary reasons Islam and Muslims were banned from New Spain by legal and Church decree.

Pepe was a walking book of Puerto Rican history characterized by melancholy. Once I confronted Pepe and asked him: “what was the issue” he broke down, and told me, in tears, with distraught what ached him. He said: “I love my people but they are killing themselves.” Drugs, crime, ignorance have overwhelmed our community. Pepe went to the extremes -emotionally- he wanted his people to be in the stuggle for a better life, he thought Islam could help. The question was would they put aside their culture and habits for Deen, were the men brave and strong enough for that and the women willing to sacrifice?

Pepe was a Catholic but he was fascinated by Islam. Islam occupied his mind so much so that he narrates that one time he preached to his friends on a street corner about Islam he told them it could benefit them. Despite, his efforts and enthusiasm he saw little results.

Years later Pepe would see his friends convert to Islam (something that made him content) the problem, he said, was many entered Islam in jail, as protection for advantages. Pepe on the other hand entered Islam because he felt and saw in it truth and was convinced that the Catholic church failed abandoned Latinos. The closing down of Churches in the inner city for economic reasons only convinced him more of this reality -big business he said.Pepe said weird things like: The Polish Pope John Paul the II made an agreement with President Regan to eliminate the work of priests in Latin America (they were with and for the people) so Poland could be rid of Communism (in other words he sold them out for national liberation). It took me years to figure out what Pepe was talking about (after entering the seminary and leaving the Church for Islam).
Pepe always was about some affair and steadily aware of the trends and forces shaping thought and action in the community. One time he told me about the 5% Nation of Gods And Earths and the Nation Of Islam. I thought he was nuts until I saw a 5% Percenter talking to him telling him he was a God and he needed knowledge of self. He seemed to be interested in the idea of self knowledge and the focus on literacy that he saw these things in these two groups but he did not think they were real religions.The Nation of Islam and 5% ‘s cultivated learning he said but he wanted to know about Jesus and it was this quest to know Jesus that pushed him to study Islam and by this means he came to enter into Islam.

Pepe took to study the history of the Holy Land for a greater knowledge of the historical Jesus during this quest study he confront Islam for the first time as it was practiced in a Muslim land . Through this search he would learn of the adhan and heard it called while watching a documentary on Palestine (the land Jesus was said to have been born in). The adhan resonated in his heart for years, its beauty and simplicity moved his heart and years later he became Muslim. Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar….La Ilha Illa Allah

Pepe commented on the influx of converts into Islam in the late 80’s and 90’s and did not seem to like the manner in which people in Philadelphia were converting to Islam (in large numbers from both the African American and the Latino communities). I found this strange at first but the reason for his unease was a lack of quality in commitment. He felt that many were moved by the fad to imitate the Muslim but the yearning for an inner transformation was lacking. In fact, this same feeling was reverberating among many young religious people particularly Christians who saw young people flocking to Islam because it offered a culture, an identity (dress and name and cool terms).

Pepe recalled to me a story that highlights what was happening among the youth. He said he once saw an old classmate on the city’s public transportation. While on a bus his friend Jaime, with whom he went to Catholic school, had been exposed to Islam. (this would be one in a large series of contacts with Muslims) During the encounter Pepe asked Jaime if he had been attending Church as both Pepe and Jaime were once altar boys and did their confirmations together. ( Pepe also recalled Jaime was beaten by the nuns, quite often. So one day Jaime punched the nun who beat him in the face, in retaliation for what he deemed abuse this happened at St. Henry’s Catholic school. He also mentioned that Jaime was being raised by his father and grandmother and seemed to have emotional problems) Pepe said Jaime was not very religious in school but he made a point to talk to Pepe about Islam when asked about Church he told him: Muslims have a Holy book (theQur’an) that rhymes and itis “dope.” Pepe never saw Jaime have enthusiasm about things holy but Islam seem to overcome him as if he had nur on his face.

This I think is what scared people about Islam, it energized people and caused them to love religion and study and practice and brought people together. This posed a threat to emotional religious activity and its establishment (this is what characterized Christianity in the poor communities). Christians in the inner city saw Muslims as a threat because in the words of a religious Christian man: ” those Moslems study, you gotta watch dem” this identity took people from the Church but today Muslims seem to be no threat because they have the same problems that drove people from the Church.

Pepe was possessed by sadness, I believe, because he saw so much in life. Once he narrated to me a story about a young guy who grew up in a crack house, saw his mother used by men for drug money (she sold her body) and then saw his mother shot by police officers, gunned down in the streets. This is the stuff that brought sadness to him. Much had changed in the Barrio he said. In the old days the elders worked together and settled their problems by a fist fight at the most by the time this incident of tragedy occurred the streets were plagued by guns, trafficked in by gun peddlers many of them European Americans from the country side and the suburbs. They sold military issue weapons and traded shot guns for drugs Pepe said.
Pepe told me. social breakdown this is the plight of our people the poor of America in the country and the city (white, black and latinos and others) and his struggle is struggle to be a poor righteous teacher in a cess pool.


It was a sense of mission that pushed him into Islam but he was sad his people did not follow suit. He told me he read Piri Thomas‘ biography (from the Nuyorican movement), it was like a Puerto Rican version of a Malcolm X story, except Pepe says, Piri missed the boat because he saw Islam thought about it and never became Muslim. Pepe says many older Puerto Ricans say the older American Muslims in New York and Philly carried with them traces of the Zulu Nation. Their practice of Islam and way is marked by their past. Then he said you see Muslims today use licorice sticks as miswaks these sticks before the dawn of Islam were a mark of the Zulus. This and other coded symbols and behavior indicated to older Puerto Ricans that the trend among Zulus was to turn to Makka, i.e., they were entering Islam.

Pepe was always sad when he thought of the plight of his people, the poor, their stuggles but he regretted more and with greater intensity that the early Muslims who converted to Islam did little in education. This tore him apart after he converted. He said this failure to build in education will haunt the community in the future. Pepe supported this claim by recited that Guarionex, a great Taino chief from Puerto Rican taught us a lesson. When he fought the Spanish colonists he declared “we must fight them or our children will blame us and curse us for being subjugated to oppression.” From this historical lesson he said the older generation must make a way for the youth, we must leave them a better state or they will blame us for their ill condition and deficiency. Predicated upon this principle, of making a way for the youth he hoped to work in education among Muslims and change the effects of history.

Historically he saw that the effort of the Nation of Islam to educate their members served a great need and they did more in this regard than did the Sunnis. This hard lesson I was never to forget.Pepe always had ideas he tried but he worked to be practical. He said to me: “Our people will come into Islam but they will bring their cultural baggage and stunt their growth. They will make a point to keep their Latinoness and keep alive their Nationalism and fail to learn because they will have to change this is what will destroy them. Do not take this path and work to make a difference.”He said: “If they only knew how they only needed to cultivate a Muslim identity and replace shallow notions of culture and life with founded principles and revelation.
Time to time, Pepe would emotionally break down before me, in tears. I will never forget when he said in tears: “I have watched my people kill themselves and I only loved for them the best. I would never think to see Muslims kill and fight each other and argue over their Deen. What I realize today is that they too are in need of Islam -oh how Islam is strange” He then looked at me still in tears and said: ” Young akh, you are Puerto Rican?” and I turned to him and said: “no, I am Muslim.”He said: Correct, you have done well “young boah.”

What I want you to realize is that studying Islam and living it is to have real have culture and in this you will find yourself. Our people, he said: they die in ignorance and some love kufr instead of Iman. Because of desire they fail to love the Deen. Don’t be afraid to stand alone, without your people if need demand this is the way of the Prophets (as) Ibrahim (as) was a Nation, side with the truth. Remember that the brotherhood of Islam is a brotherhood of Iman and transcends race, class and color, a lesson yet to be learned!

Abul-Hussein

two more blogs to plug

After taking a little more time to dive back into the blogosphere (i.e. after checking out The Manrilla Blog) I "discovered" two blogs I wanted to give a shout-out to over here. The first is Black American Muslim Political Scientists authored by Charles Hassan Ali. I would especially want to point to the article I Am Not Alone which candidly looks at some of the racial issues touched on in/by african & caribbean muslim marriage event.

The second blog is On Faith: Sherman Jackson where Prof. Jackson himself (the author of Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection) shares his own personal thoughts on a number of religious questions.

african & caribbean muslim marriage event

Since only a minority of hits to Planet Grenada are coming from the UK, I'm thinking of the following as a springboard for discussion as well as a simple announcement:

Islamic Circles Presents

AFRICAN & CARIBBEAN MUSLIM MARRIAGE EVENT

Date: Saturday 18th August 2007
Time: 1pm - 4pm
Venue: Room 405, 4th Floor,

Birkbeck College, University of London,
Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX

DEADLINE FOR BOOKING: WEDNESDAY 15TH AUGUST 2007

Light refreshments will be provided.

Registration will be at 1pm

and latecomers will be penalised.

Prior registration is necessary and please book online at our website http://www.muslimmarriageevents.org/.

This event is for sincere and serious people only,

not time wasters and people with bad manners.

To book or for more information

please contact: Tel: 07956 983 609
E-mail: marriage@islamiccircles.org
Website: http://www.muslimmarriageevents.org/

The most interersting and controversial aspect to the announcement was the brief paragraph explaining the reason for the event:

Because of the unfortunate 'racism' amongst certain Muslim communities, and the constant rejection and time wasting, a special marriage event especially geared towards to Muslims of African and Carribean origin has been organised. People of all statuses are welcome. Non African and Carribean are also welcome if they 'really serious' and open to marrying them.

So especially as an Afro-Caribbean Muslim myself, I wonder why there would be a special reluctance to marriage with Afro-Caribbean Muslims on the part of "certain Muslim communities"? Also, does this reluctance constitute racism? In the long run, will Afro-Caribbean Muslims in the UK self-segregate (due to external influences) and form a distinct group? Would this be a positive development or a negative one?\

Discuss.