On the road where we get to reflect on our lives whether it is listening to music, enjoying the scenery, or talking to your professors on the way to the next destination—our course on Islam in America significantly opened a new perspective towards Islam by allowing ourselves to understand and engage ourselves into discussion by dwelling upon the experiences that helped shape our perceptions towards their muslim narratives.

I introduced myself to Islam through a series of documentaries and snippets from videos. Unfortunately, the media has developed an image that has deranged the Islamic values causing people to develop misconceptions about Islam without giving themselves time to learn about it. One of the required readings for our class was The autobiography of Malcolm X as told to by Alex Haley. I have never read anyone’s autobiography and of course I was super excited to read Malcolm X’s. After completing the book it was powerful because as Malcolm told his life story he guided us through his metamorphosis of his own character. Bad habits to good habits, weaknesses to growth– Malcolm embodied perseverance and that is what many muslim communities are bound to when living in a world where Islamophobia exists. In relation to our course through this ten day road trip I was able to start off with an open mind and adhere to any of their religious practices because it is easy to make assumptions without knowing the background of why they do it. Even so, for Muslims in America they have different beliefs and practices, and it was essential to engage ourselves within discussion and get to experience what they have to offer as Sunni, Sufi, or Shia Muslims. From these three main ones I have come to learn that there is a total of 73 sects within Islam. This fact within itself is very intriguing, so I found this course to be impactful and life changing.

We had been traveling now for a couple of days and on the tenth day we finally had arrived to Michigan. Snow was on the ground and our hands were cold. It was time for some sleep because the following day was going to be eventful. Dearborn, Michigan is known as one of the largest Muslim communities in North America, so it was compelling to visit the Islamic Center of America there http://biid.lsa.umich.edu/2011/06/islamic-center-of-america/. Interestingly, this center has a congregation of different faiths, such as Jews, Christians, and Muslims. This embarks on the idea of interfaith communities and how they work together to provide a safe space of worship for anyone. Including socializing and sponsored events towards the benefit of the community. This muslim center is part of the Shia sect; however, they are open for anyone to join and take advantage of the services they offer. After our visit there I decided to  do some research regarding the community because from my perspective, Eide Alawan, seemed to be disconnected towards certain questions we asked. For example, he was surprised when someone from our class asked him if women could become a Marja. He was taken aback for a second where until he redirected the question back to us. I guess he was sort of uncomfortable to answer a tough question like that. This situation challenges the common conceptions of leadership and how they are applied to women within the mosque. A reason for that it is because men tend to hold leadership positions, which comes from the notion of traditional values. While, now that times have changed it is quite frank that there are more women today who are speaking up for what is important to them. Our discussion with Alawan actually made it clear to me how some Muslims could be unaware of the needs that muslim women would like to have access to in their community. For instance, according to Detroit’s free press, the long time imam Hassan Al-Qazwini had resign his leadership role in 2015. This ties everything together because his reason for leaving was that “Al-Qazwini blasted the board, saying it lacked term limits, promoted nepotism, had no female members, and failed to discipline those who acted improperly.” Imam Hassan also accused the mosque to be “Undemocratic, Unislamic, and Unamerican,” this developed controversial discussions regarding the foundation that was established with the long time imam. In addition, the article said that “Al-Qazwini, who is of Iraqi descent, and his supporters also say the board wanted to limit the mosque membership to Lebanese-Americans.” Alawan actually mentioned that he was concerned about some members of the Islamic Center of America who expressed negativity towards the immigrant community. They were not happy about the immigrant population that attends the center. This can be further explored in the “Whiteness and the Arab Immigrant Experience” article by Sawsan Abdulrahim, mentioned that “Dearborn is a suburb whose history is entwined with the maintenance of racial segregation.” This strictly confirms why there is a hesitance toward the immigrant community at this center. From Alwan’s concern he would like to foster equality within the Islamic Center of America where they are able to incorporate interfaith social events and continue upholding their genuine Islamic values. Regardless of the difficult transition they faced as they have grown over the years, our visit expressed otherwise– we saw that students were brought to the center so they could learn more about Islam and they continue to uphold their values of what it means to be a muslim. Overall, our visit to the Islamic Center of America was great and the people there were very nice. We got to meet a nice lady who identified herself as a Jew, and has been there ever since the center first opened in 2005. When she spoke about their community her face lit up and she seemed very fortunate to be part of the Islamic Center of America. I am glad I was able to visit this Islamic center, which helped me expand my knowledge towards Islam and the work they do in order to promote positivity within their community in Dearborn, Michigan

Sources

Abdulrahim, Sawsan. “Whiteness and the Arab immigrant experience.” Race and Arab Americans before and after 9/11: From invisible citizens to visible subjects (2008): 131-46.

Warikoo, Niraj. 2015. “Longtime Leader of Dearborn Mosque Leaves amid Split.” Detroit Free Press. Detroit Free Press. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2015/06/05/imam-qazwini-resigns-dearborn-mosque/28581129/.

9/11 Memorial Museum and the Effects of Collective Amnesia

Something that I had presumed to be inevitable, and extremely frightening was scheduled to take place during our ten day road trip focused on American Islam. This trip was a component of larger discourse studying the representation of American Muslim communities in US history and contemporary discourse. Our course, “Islam in America”, aimed to present contested narratives regarding Islam, and the prolonged history of Islam in the North American nation. Discourse on American Islam cannot take place without the acknowledgement of the tragic 9/11 event, and a visit to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. However, this was something that I dreaded to confront as the tragedies of 9/11 not only shattered the lives of thousands, but directly impacted me as it legitimized my criminality (as a Muslim refugee to the US) through Islamophobic rhetoric. Nonetheless, this confrontation occurred on January 14 2019, as we made our visit to this place that is both a memorialization, and an engraved educational system as to “never forgot” this horrific attack. As I walked around, I couldn’t help feel conflicted emotions of hatred and pain. Disappointment at the one-sided discourse presented by the information in the museum. I grappled with juxtaposed sentiments of monstrosity and humane as I contemplated on how the United States has capitalized on the emergence of a “ new fear” to justify its criminalization of Muslims (domestically and abroad), placed American exceptionalism regarding religious liberties which ones were perserved for all of humanity, and continued its oppression of foreign nations: all vindicated by a nationwide amnesia regarding Islam in America.

Discussions on 9/11 often portray Islamophobia as a direct result of the American public’s shock and horrification of an unexpected foreign attack. However, while this is a collective sentiment that American people have weaponized to justify their respond, it cannot be far from the truth. Edward Curtis in his chapter titled, “The Black Muslim Scare of the Twentieth Century: the History of State Islamophobia and its 9/11 Variations” proclaimed that, “Islamophobia was not an ignorant reaction of the public to the presence of Muslims in America. It was manufactured.” The heighten sensitivity of American citizens and their genuine concern about Islamist invading their nation is a reasonable reaction: as American citizens were sheltered from the international crusades engaged by their national leaders. A fear that sat at the hands of American leaders and security agencies, most noticeably the FBI, for years before it was would be utilized. Nonetheless, a collective amnesia regarding the existence of American Muslims, the history of Islam in America, and the advocacy of violence against Muslims by the American public post 9/11, must be addressed and not criminalized as treason or an understatement of the event’s severity. In erasing Islam’s presence in America pre-9/11, we remove narratives that complicate this presumption that 9/11 was the “time America interacted with Islam”. For centuries, America was home to Muslim Americans as early as the 1800s when the first Muslim came here as an explorer, carried out a silent war against Islam domestically with Muslim denominations: most noticeably the Nation of Islam, and created a division within Black Islam and Mainstream Islam which is still evident today with the segregation of Muslim communities. Nonetheless, this interaction goes unnoticed and is detrimental to the American people as they continue to live in a cultural amnesia which the rest of the world has awaken from. Furthermore, this collective amnesia has been utilized by the American public to not take responsibility or engage in discourse regarding the impact 9/11 has had on others; noticeably immigrants who embody that foreignness associated with radical Islam and American Muslims who have been silenced from sharing their pain, and stripped of civil liberties which are essential to combat Islamophobia. Thus, the effects of the American public’s collective amnesia in shaping discourse on 9/11 is something that needs to be researched to account for how Islamophobia and government capitalism on the event occurred.

American collective amnesia not only shaped the way discourse on Islamophobia unfolded, it also created an “exclusive” patriotism, and lead to the creation of “racial refugees” domestically as Arab Americans aimed to navigate their racial displacement in a post 9/11. After 9/11 what it means to be American complete changed. America further became aligned with whiteness as the claim of Americanness and citizenship was made harder for people of brown and black complexion. American became disassociated with the Muslim identity. This struggle of having to navigate racial displacement, from all over the Muslim community,  is something that goes unnoticed and receives little attention.  Moreover, the exclusive nature of patriotism lead to the criminalization and disregard for the life of American Muslims, such as Mohammad Salman Hamdani. An American Muslim who died a hero, but was memorialized as another loss of causality: stripped of his Muslimness and Americanness which promoted his selfless action. This again depicts the dangers of American collective amnesia in a post 9/11 world. These two aspects are something that I believe should be further researched as they create an interesting phenomenon of division within the Muslim community regarding immigrant and American Muslims and their practices of faith.

When discourse on 9/11 occurs, a collective memory of the event is acknowledged as this was a time the American public felt a sense of doubled loss, however, the collective amnesia displayed by the American public and the dangers it posed to American Muslims goes unresearched. The US’s capitalization of this collective amnesia is further absent. The US’s capitalization of a “new fear” and the public’s collective amnesia must be explored to address the dangers this presents in alienating American Muslim voices, delegitimizing victims of Islamophobia and creating a racial displacement amongst the “white passing” Muslim individuals. All of these factors negatively impacted the Muslim community in the post 9/11 arena. More information on this can help us to understand public discourse on 9/11, the controversy of ground zero, and the constant devaluation of Islam as a nonreligious and merely political factor. As more conversation around 9/11 is being held, the capitalization of the event by the United States through collective amnesia is central to understanding the criminality of historical remembrance, diverging narratives, and inclusion of American Muslims as victims of the tragedy.

After reading the Autobiography of Malcolm Xand hearing about Malcolm’s deep connections to and love for Harlem, visiting Masjid Malcolm Shabazz (formerly Nation of Islam Temple No. 7) was a demonstrative experience.

While in the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X proselytized and started many mosques around the east coast of the US. The one that was “his” mosque, where he felt most connected to it and the community, was at Temple No. 7 in Harlem, New York City. He set up this temple in 1956 and continued to preach there until his departure from the Nation of Islam in 1964. AT the beginning, the temple was only able to rent a banquet room on one floor of a multi-story building; now the mosque owns the whole building, as well as many surrounding it.

When Malcolm X came to the neighborhood in the early 1960s with the idea of building a Nation of Islam temple, Harlem was known for its drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. It mirrored the environment that Malcolm X had grown up in–what he decried as a place where white people relegated black people in order to subjugate them. In other words, this community was one that needed the Nation of Islam’s teachings most. Since he had spent much time in Harlem, Malcolm was familiar with the community and worked eagerly and tirelessly to establish this temple and attract people to it.

The mosque, though it remained with the Nation of Islam after Malcolm broke from it, was guided under W.D. Muhammad to more orthodox Sunni Islam, as were many Nation of Islam temples after Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975. Today it remains in the Sunni tradition, though many of its members remember the days of Nation of Islam.

While visiting this masjid, we had the opportunity to speak to an active member of the masjid and community. This man had been a resident of Harlem and a Muslim for most of his life, and had seen the benefits the Nation of Islam had brought to the neighborhood. He told us about the history of the corner that the masjid is on: it used to be the worst corner in Harlem, known for drug dealers and prostitutes. This changed when the Nation established Temple No. 7 in the area, and the masjid is now “the most influential place in Harlem.” It’s the place where kids run into when they’re fighting on the street and the only building in the neighborhood without iron gates. Malcolm drew people to Nation’s teachings and away from drugs, alcohol and prostitution–which he said were tools that the white man used to keep the black man preoccupied and oppressed–and thus benefitted not only the people in the neighborhood but also the image of it.

This man’s relationship to the Nation of Islam was tenuous and complicated, as it probably is for many others. He appreciated the good that NOI did in the neighborhood and the message that Malcolm brought to the people of Harlem. He said that Malcolm came to the truth and accepted it himself, and Elijah Muhammad did that for 2 million people. Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam led millions of African Americans to what has become today mainstream knowledge/discourse, i.e. the systemic and purposeful oppression of black people by white people. The Nation gave African Americans a sense of pride which led to more personal productivity, thus helping its neighbors and the black community as a whole to “come out of the mud.” Islam, through the Nation, freed African Americans from the idea of slavery, the idea that the way things were was as they always should be. Most valuably, Elijah’s group gave black men dignity in a society that deprived them of that at all costs.

On the other hand, this man also said that the Nation was “racist, myopic, and unaccepting.” He said that the Nation loved hating white people more than they loved God. He said that it was a pseudomilitary and paramilitary group and a social reform movement, not a religion. He dismissed it as a religion when he talked about his personal shift to Sunni Islam, which he said was a “natural transition.” I took this to mean that the Nation gave this man (any many others) an introduction to Islam and its teachings, enough so that he realized what it professed, but absent were most religious practices and the reverence for Allah that make Islam a religion. Thus when W.D. Muhammad shifted many Nation of Islam temples to Sunni orthodoxy, many already believed in what the faith professed and simply adopted all the religious practices. The Nation of Islam can be thought of as an Islamic-inspired political group, but not necessarily an Islamic religious group.

We asked this man about the mosque’s relationship to and differences from other Muslim communities in New York City, and he expressed that the difference was primarily a racial one. Because this mosque is, was, and always has been for and by African American Muslims, it lacks the “cultural baggage” that other Muslim communities have. Implied in this is the idea that Masjid Malcolm Shabazz practices a more pure form of Islam, one not corrupted by culture at all. This was poignant for me and many others in the group. The man claimed that African Americans lost their languages, their histories, their knowledge of themselves; he argued that these constitute culture and since these things were lost in relation to African roots, African Americans are “free” of culture. He said the very term “black” stood for B Lack, as in “be lacking” because black people lack ties to their homelands.

In my opinion, this was a misappropriation of what culture is, in addition to being incorrect. Yes, African Americans have had their African languages, families, traditions, stories, etc. ripped away from them. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have culture now, though, it’s just not African culture. There is a distinct African American culture, however, I would argue; one that is shaped by forced relocation, slavery, oppression, and violence. These factors have shaped African American lives, perceptions, experiences, thoughts, and attitudes just as much as any other culture would shape its people, and they bring as much baggage to Islam as any other culture would bring. Everybody who grows up in a society has a culture, and to not recognize that is a vast oversight in my opinion.

This man from Masjid Malcolm Shabazz personifies the complicated relationship that the Nation of Islam has with both former NOI temples and members as well as society at large. It is remembered as a non-religion that incited black men to rise up. Wider society doesn’t typically remember the benefits that the Nation brought to poor neighborhoods, but this man recollects the dignity that the Nation returned to black men. Many of the Nation’s teachings that Malcolm spread have become more common in discourse today, for example the concept that white men have purposefully thwarted black men’s steps to equality and kept them oppressed through political, social, and economic systems that America was built on.

The Nation’s legacy is tenuous, but reading the Autobiography of Malcolm Xand visiting Masjid Malcolm Shabazz made apparent to me the importance of not simply writing something off as good or bad, but examining as many sides and perspectives as possible. Rarely is something just black and white. Neither the Nation of Islam nor Malcolm X can or should be decidedly “good” or “bad,” but their legacies should continue to be explored and grappled with.

Each Friday, directly beneath the dome of the Capitol building in Washington DC, Muslim people who work on or near the Hill come together for midday, or Jum’ah, prayer. Our class was granted the privilege of attending these prayers on January 11 between meetings with Muslim staffers in various congressional offices. After we received visitors passes from the security guards and took the small metro to where the prayer room was located, we took off our shoes and covered our heads, as we had done at each previous masjid, or mosque.

Sitting in the back of the room and observing, it struck me to see the way in which this service, like so many others we attended, emphasized the equality of the assembled before Allah. People left their expensive shoes at the entrance and sat next to each other on the ground in their work clothes, shoulder to shoulder, praising their God by bowing to him. There were no party lines here, just people trying to fulfill the requirements of their faith.

While this religious gathering was no different from those conducted by other religious organizations on Capitol Hill, I wondered how others might react to the knowledge that there is an Islamic prayer service held weekly in the Capitol. On the website of the Office of the Chaplain of the House of Representatives, I was able to find a time and location listed for the Friday Jum’ah services. The site also has listings for a weekly Bible study and Rosary group, alongside an archive of every opening prayer for each day in the House of Representatives stretching back to March 2000.

The lack of information given about the Jum’ah service on the website is troubling, particularly with the level of Islamophobia present in our world today. A staffer we met with informed us that this service has been going on since 1998, when Newt Gingrich gave them a room, HC-5, to use Friday afternoons. Since then, anywhere from 60-100 Muslim people gather for a nonsectarian service there on a weekly basis. The Congressional Muslim Staffers Association (MSA) faded at some point in the last two decades, but in recent years, staffers have been reviving it, particularly now that there are three Muslim representatives in Congress.

When I looked online for information about the service in general, I came across a site seeking to make the general public aware of the weekly prayer service and denouncing the Muslim Staffers Association (MSA) and other Islamic advocacy groups such as CAIR for their status as “unindicted co-conspirators to terrorist activities.” There were also many articles detailing various reactions to the National Day of Prayer that Muslim activists organized in September 2009 in the wake of Obama’s election, heightened Islamophobia due to conspiracy theories that he is a Muslim, and his assertion that the U.S. is not a Christian nation but a nation of citizens. While there were definitely supporters of the display of faith, it was disheartening to see so many people arguing against the right of Muslims to pray in our nation’s capital. This kind of argument sets Islam apart from other religions which are allowed to practice in this manner, ignores our country’s past, and erases the role that Muslim people have played in American history since its foundations.

In 2005, a taskforce was assigned to examine the role of slaves in constructing the U.S. Capitol and other landmarks around Washington DC. Their conclusions, published in a report titled “History of Slave Laborers in the Construction of the United States Capitol,” confirmed that yes, slaves were involved in nearly every aspect of the construction of the Capitol. This is relevant to our class and to the presence of Muslims on Capitol Hill because research estimates that from 40 thousand to three million of the enslaved peoples brought from Africa to British North America and the Caribbean when the Atlantic slave trade was happening were Muslims. This means that there is a fair chance that a slave with Muslim ancestry helped to construct the Capitol, disrupting the narrative that these buildings belong exclusively to Christian Americans.

The quiet prayer service that I witnessed that Friday in the Capitol building is not a threat to our country. In fact, a group of people who face religious discrimination in their everyday lives using their lunch breaks to pray before returning to their jobs representing the average American voters who voted them into office seems like a perfect example of the multiplicity of beliefs within this country. To deny them their right to practice their religion would be to undermine the values that the Capitol is supposed to represent.