The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

I just finished reading a 4-part piece entitled “Why Black American Muslims Don’t Stand for Justice” by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad. In it he goes into fine detail about the rift between Black American Muslims and immigrant Muslims that has been growing for years. As a person who is not a Muslim, I found his piece to be quite informative and enlightening about a religion that many Americans know very little about outside what is portrayed on television. His candor on such a topic is what really grabbed my attention. He closes his series with the following:

“So instead of becoming agents for positive change in the community, these young Muslims were instructed to disengage from society, and by so doing be assured of having the correct aqeedah. Really, could anything be more ridiculous than that? What kind of cruel hoax got played on these romantic dreamers who embraced Islam with a passion to change the world, only to be morphed into extreme isolationists who saw no value in bettering the societies in which they live? “Gaining knowledge”(one of their buzz terms) became a goal in and of itself, as opposed to a means of improving our condition and practicing our religion. This is why you found brothers using the excuse of “seeking knowledge” as reasons to not take care of their families and responsibilities. I simply do not have the energy at the present moment (nor do I suspect I ever will) to reiterate the sophestry that poses as an argument for the self-evidently false doctrines of the Salafis. I’ll let the last remnant of their dead-enders do that for me (if anyone really cares to know). I just wondered how on earth we arrived at such a crossroads with our youth that so many of them could be so easily be persuaded to abandon community activism and making a difference. By the end of the 1990’s, thoughts of community involvement and activism had long since vanished from the hearts and minds of these Muslims. Further, because of the bizarre mix of immigrant dominated movements and their issues being pushed firmly to the forefront in that decade, we started to see identity issues in these same youth – who were getting older – in force by the turn of the century.

The attitude of the Muslims in general throughout the 1990’s left us open to a rift between the Muslims and the Black community. Whereas this relationship was strong in the past, these groups had successfully, religiously convinced the Blackamerican Muslims to distance themselves from the communities they grew up in. The Blackamerican Muslims had taken a back seat to the immigrants and were carrying their water and Islam was ceasing to be a force in the Black Community. But as I suggested earlier, I suspect that the main reason Blackamerican Muslims don’t stand for justice is because its easier to simply not be Black at all.” (Read the whole thing here)

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