American Islam Enters its Next Phase -- Sightings

Until recently most Americans had little interest in or connection to Islam. Most of us knew very little about it -- though we knew that Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar had both converted to Islam -- back in the 60s. We may have heard about Malcom X -- whose fiery rhetoric made many Americans embrace Martin Luther King as the less radical version of the Civil Rights effort. But for the most part we've known little about Islam -- and continue to know little about it, though interest is growing (mostly out of fear).

Omer Mazaffar, a University of Chicago Ph.D. student directs us to the person of W.D. Mohammed, son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Mohammed. Unlike his father W.D. Mohammed came to embrace orthodox Sunni Islam and became a leader in American Islam -- across ethnic boundaries. W.D. Mohammed was buried on September 11th, just a week ago, ending a family legacy that has had a significant impact on American religious and political life. It is a helpful piece, introducing us to a person few of us know about.

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Sightings
9/18/08

American Islam Enters its Next Phase

-- Omer M. Mozaffar

Thousands of Muslim mourners flocked to Chicago last week to bury their beloved Brother Imam, Warith Deen Mohammed, who died on September 9. They laid to rest what may be the single most significant legacy in the history of American Islam. Many of the roads that today define American Islam pass through this family, beginning with Elijah Muhammad and culminating with his son and successor W. D. Mohammed.

To his critics, Elijah Muhammad was a racist demagogue; to his sympathizers, he was the divine voice of dignity for the dispossessed, reclaiming the religion of their forefathers. W. D. Mohammed, conversely, was a quiet, humble voice for universal brotherhood and sisterhood both within mainstream Islam and across faith communities. Though his following was large and loyal enough to rival that of most American Christian preachers, he was often overshadowed in the media by another of Elijah's students, Minister Louis Farrakhan. Nevertheless, W. D. Mohammed was perfectly comfortable and effective outside of the limelight, earning the audience of presidents, princes, pontiffs, and pundits across the globe. The paths of so many prominent Muslim Americans of the past century – Congressmen Keith Ellison (Minnesota) and Andre Carson (Indiana), and athletes Muhammad Ali (whose manager was the recently deceased Jabir Herbert Muhammad, brother of Warith Deen) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to give a few examples – find their origins in this family or its ideological descendants, who include Malcolm X. But it is less well-known that the other cultural strands of American Islam are also rooted in this family.

Following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, waves of South Asian, Arab, and African Muslim professionals and students migrated to the United States. Throughout the 1970s, as Elijah Muhammad's heterodox Nation of Islam transformed into W. D. Mohammed's orthodox World Community of al-Islam, immigrant Muslims found tutelage, support, and engagement with Mohammed as they founded their own communities. These different branches of African American, African, South Asian, and Arab Muslim communities grew rapidly throughout the 1980s, developing their own distinct, diverse personalities.

The 1990s, however, saw another period of transformation. As the Cold War ended, the notion of "West vs. East" continued, except that "East" was no longer the red menace of "Communism," but the green menace of "Islam." The Salman Rushdie affair, the first Gulf War, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Kosova, the first attack on the World Trade Center, the Russian war against Chechen separatists, the rise of the Taliban from the chaos of the former Soviet Occupation, the witch hunt for Muslims and Arabs immediately after the Oklahoma City Bombing, and the American Federal use of Secret Evidence in prosecuting prominent Muslim leaders and organizations compelled many American Muslim communities to shift focus away from growth, establishment, and flowering, toward self-defense and survival against a growing sense of mistrust. This concern amplified in the past decade following the attacks of 9/11/01, the destructive occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the PATRIOT Act, and the repeated reference to "Islamic Extremism" as a tool of political propaganda.

Nevertheless, American Islam did continue to grow across new horizons. Spike Lee's film Malcolm X inspired millions to discover or revisit the life of the slain leader, and W. D. Mohammed expanded his interactions to the global stage, while his followers focused on developing academic credentials in order to lead and teach. Farrakhan organized the astoundingly successful Million Man March, and began a subsequent change in his rhetoric. And the children of the immigrants began to come of age as parents, professionals, community organizers, and scholars.

A new generation of Muslims – spanning many ethnicities and religious outlooks – works along various threads of consciousness and activism. Many seek to develop a healthy Islamic practice that is as loyal to its traditional roots as it is to its American home; many seek to strengthen defenses against an increasingly hostile political climate; many seek to return America to a place of prominence on the global stage, demanding that it lives up to its own ideals; many seek to confront a radicalization that is microscopic in scale but wide in potential devastation (as well as political opportunism); and most seek to continue life simply as family members and professionals. Imam Mohammed's influence can be felt in all these threads.

It is perhaps more than coincidence that Warith Deen Mohammed was buried on September 11. The Janāza (funeral prayer) and burial were perfumed with both sadness and great hope. Among the tears and laughter of thousands of mourners were discussions about the immediate and long-term future of Muslim America, and throughout those discussions was a strong sense of confidence, dignity, and faith.


Omer M. Mozaffar is a PhD student in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Chicago, and teaches in the Asian Classics Curriculum at the University of Chicago's Graham School of General Studies

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This month, the Marty Center's Religion and Culture Web Forum features "Secularism, Religious Renaissance, and Social Conflict in Asia" by Richard Madsen of the University of California, San Diego. The concept of secularism as a political, social, and cultural phenomenon developed in the midst of and in reference to Western countries. Madsen applies this framework to East and Southeast Asia, finding that, while it "does not perfectly fit, the lack of fit is useful for highlighting particular dilemmas faced by Asian governments in an era of political and religious transformation." Formal responses from Hong You (PhD candidate, University of Chicago Divinity School), Prasenjit Duara (National University of Singapore), Robert Weller (Boston University), and Hans Joas (University of Chicago) will be posted throughout the month. http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/webforum/

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

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