Category: Islam in America

In my reflection on Ernst, I brought up a lot of questions of my own that carry on throughout the rest of my portfolio such as “Can religions and religious people co-exist?” and “Should the role of religion be a private or public affair?” For my first question, I’ve definitely thought a lot about how myself and others make assumptions that different religions and sects of religions are inherently in opposition to each other, especially in the West. Of course, this sort of antagonistic religious dogma can be and is pushed by certain leaders, often for some type of personal gain, but I think overall, there are many examples of different religions coexisting together now and historically. I think contact between these groups is the most important, so that misunderstandings and fear disintegrate. Particularly, I have changed my views on this because of Palestine and the article we read on Palestine–how it is not a religious conflict and that it is largely dominated by political ideology and land. As well as the fact that Muslims, Jews, and Christians co-existed there historically. Of course, the power structures are an important part of the equation, and I don’t think you can separate them from religion either. For my second question about the role of religion as a public or private affair, there’s obviously also precedent for governmental bodies as being religious or formed by their religion, though there are also examples of lots of sectarianism because of this, and discrimination against certain groups. To me, religion restricted to private life is probably the most beneficial for society as a whole, although the lines between culture, practice, and religion blur this. 

Two other main ideas I took away from Ernst that show up in my writing multiple times is the fact that religions are ever-changing and the role of belief vs. practice in religion. An idea that has been reinforced for me over this semester is the fact that the religions people form or wish to partake in are a direct result of people’s environment. I thought about this a lot from the film on Malcom X, the Nation of Islam reading, and Jackson’s “Black American Religion”. It became clear that white supremacy played a ginormous role in the formation of Black Christianity and Islam in America, and that the way these religions preached, performed, and practiced often maintained an activist element of anti-racism and anti-white supremacy. In my reflection on the Malcom X film, I wrote “Like Malcom said, they had been stripped of their religious and cultural heritage in Africa, and were made to feel inferior, and sometimes worship the white man. It makes sense they would want to see themselves reflected in their religion and in history.” The beliefs and practices of the Nation of Islam were a bit challenging for me to understand within this framework, because they can be seen as upholding white supremacy. Though that is why it is important to look at the root cause of these movements and how they form. Just as Zionism is contradictory to Jewish safety, Nation of Islam’s ideology might be contradictory to Black Liberation.

I also thought about the role of belief vs. practice in religion, as many tend to assume that Christianity places more importance on belief than Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism. Personally, I think both play an important role for all religions. I critiqued neo-liberalism and modern DEI efforts from the readings of Karim and Alsultany, as they pose no opposition to fascist ideologies and the reality of wealth inequalities. A theme that comes up a lot is what the place of Islam in America is specifically with regards to racism, Islamophobia, immigration, and assimilation. It’s impossible to talk about these things without mentioning the rise overtaking of fascism in the U.S., largely backed by White Christian Nationalists, and I mention this at the end of most of my writings, as virtually everything we have discussed can be connected to it. 

For my writing, I think I have learned that it’s important to get my ideas on a page, and perfect the words later. The content and substance matters a lot more than any add-on words. I think I can improve on writing more simply and concisely. I think my essay writing is a lot cleaner than my reflections, which tend to just be my immediate thoughts. I think I could’ve added more quotes from the readings to then directly analyze, as that would have made my thoughts and connections clearer. My reflection on Jackson does the best at this. I would like to re-write my piece on Zionism: A Settler-Colonial Ideology, because it’s the most important subject we’ve talked about in this class to me, and I think I can make my points and stances better even though it is an emotionally charged topic, as it is an ongoing genocide. I would expand upon the disconnect between the media/governmental institutions and the people of the U.S., how public opinion has changed of Israel since October 7th and what that means, as well as the inherent antisemitism of Zionism, and how the true rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism are connected both through white supremacy, American Imperialism, and Jewish supremacy in Israel.

Upon my second rewatch of the documentary, I was able to really appreciate the themes of American identity and Islam, as we have studied the intersection of race and culture for Muslims in America this semester. Rap/Hip-Hop music is one of the biggest and most important cultural exports from the U.S. with a lot of significance in poor Black/Hispanic neighborhoods, so I thought it was interesting how Hamza used that as an introduction to Islam for the gang communities. He was basically speaking the language of American communities combined with revolutionary and brotherhood messaging of Islam so people could understand it and potentially convert. It really showed the cultural and racial overlaps of communities in America, and I felt that this documentary really represented a good ideal for the American Dream: a melting pot of different races, languages, food, cultures etc. all coming and mixing together. Hamza’s mom, a Puerto Rican Catholic, had a lot of confusion or misconceptions around Islam as most Americans do, but was able to see past that and probably learn a lot out of love for her son, as well as seeing how Islamic practice made him a better person. The Jewish woman, as well, initially believed all Muslims were “extremist fundamentalists”, but upon meeting them and hearing their ideas, changed her mind and gained access to a whole new world of art and literature. Of course, this is the idealized American Dream, but the documentary also shows the bad parts such as the FBI spying on the Muslim community and eventually raiding the mosque. It also shows Hamza getting fired as one Christian lady puts it “for no reason” because of the Patriot Act.

The author mentions how a lot of these task forces for Antisemitism and Islamophobia do not mentioned anything about the actual reality of the situation: Israel, Palestine, and Genocide. I feel like this aligns with the way I heard a lot of professors address the days and months after October 7th–extremely vague, but maybe they were just trying to keep their jobs. “Rather than confront these undeniable truths—thereby understanding and nuancing Jewish attachment to Zionism, acknowledging its devastating impact on Palestinians since 1948, and critiquing the role of the US government in supporting it at all costs—US university DEI initiatives obfuscate them
altogether” (10). For a long time, “liberal” people and institutions, like colleges, will tout social issues like anti-racism, pro-LGBT, pro-choice, but when it came to Israel, no criticism was allowed. I think a lot of people believed the US propaganda that Israel=Jews, therefore Zionism=Judaism. Couple this with post 9/11 anti-Muslim/Arab sentiment, very little education about the Middle East and some education about the Holocaust, and those people are primed to uphold a violent settler-colonial state. “Miller has
also shown that Zionism invented the idea of Islamic terrorism—that there is a specific form of terrorism innate to Muslims” (12). I’d like to hear more about this quote. It’s interesting how the author makes the distinction between anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism and how they affect each other. Zionism is a political ideology that relies on the ethno-supremacy of one group of people over the other (the Palestinians). It also relies on telling Jewish people that Israel is “the only safe place in the world for them”, which is extremely dangerous. Anti-Zionist Jews, of which there are many, have been now deemed “self-hating Jews” and in many cases cut off from their community. I like the authors presentation of the word “hate” and how misleading it is. War isn’t just “hate”, nor is genocide or systemic racism.

I think the issue is even more than “asymmetric” as the author describes the abundant resources for Zionists vs. Palestinian Rights orgs. There shouldn’t BE support for Zionists period. Unfortunately, in the U.S., organizations like Hillel can often time act less as safe spaces for Jewish communities to share their faith, and more like political Zionist propaganda machines. Whereas there is so much hostility towards anti-Zionists–from the institutions, authority, government, etc. Over the past two years, and even before October 7th, I have had to face the reality that my country and many people I knew were supporters of genocide, of the mass bombings of children. Online, I have seen babies with their heads smashed in, people in hospitals burning alive, I have seen the complete dehumanization of a people, and had to observe as MY people supported it–made justifications out of it. None of this is comparable to the pain the Palestinian people have endured. I pray these people and myself are forgiven for their cruelty, ignorance, and indifference in the face of such suffering. Free Palestine.

“Muslims are continuously asked to condemn these acts—and, thus, demonstrate their loyalty to their nation—but their condemnations seldom reach a wider audience” (53). The fact that Muslims always have to justify their religion and themselves as being non-violent or radical is a clear sign of Islamophobia. It would be ridiculous and offensive to ask a Jewish or Christian person to justify their religion. I found it interesting how the article mentioned that Americans post 9/11 were not willing to give up their individual civil liberties for supposed safety, although they were fine with collective liberties being breached especially when it targeted Arabs or Muslims, etc. The one thing I think this article understates is the shear amount and level of violations of law and morality that the U.S. and other allied governments committed in its post 9/11 craze, which they used to justify such violence. The CIA outsourced the kidnapping and torture (sometimes to death) of people (many innocent) for years without any consequence. “These detentions were, and continue to be, shrouded in secrecy, since the Patriot Act made it legal to hold individuals indefinitely and without formal charges, so long as the attorney general has “reasonable grounds” to believe the individuals are involved in terrorism” (61). I see such a parallel between what this article describes and what is happening today under the Trump Administration, where hundreds of student visas are being revoked for seemingly no justifiable or legal reason, dozens of students like Mahmoud Khalil are being illegally detained and deported without due process and many just for the act of criticizing Israel in any way or being a person of color/Arab. It’s interesting how they talk about the “susceptibility” of Muslims to extremism, especially when we know the numbers on who commits the most domestic terrorist attacks in America is white men, often Christians. As mentioned in the article, this seems almost deliberate. When stating the U.S. representative, “There is no equivalency of threat between al-Qaeda and neo-Nazis, environmental extremists, and other isolated madmen. Only al-Qaeda and its Islamist affiliates in this country are part of an international threat to our nation” (64). By targeting minority groups, the real threat to both these groups and the country is shrouded and protected by the government and the law–that being White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis. I remember in particular the Charleston White Supremacist Rally in 2017. Finally, the article mentions the Muslim Ban, how many supported it until it actually came into fruition. I’m not super surprised by this as I agree that people are heavily influenced by rhetoric of their Political Elites like Donald Trump. Only when the result is felt do they change their mind, kind of similar to the Tariffs that were implemented/not implemented/implemented again. I only worry that what America “wants” really is this racialized violence and stripping of constitutional rights.

The author of this piece manages to give us a huge window of insight into her life and her relation to Islam in just a few pages. It is an emotionally charged piece telling the story of her life, as it begins with her birth, both physically and spiritually. She broaches the question of what it means to be born Muslim, as it has already been assumed for her. The whole time I was reading this piece, I was unsure of why the writing structure had no capital letters. By the end, however, she states, “because finally finally finally i trust God. and They said: be. and it was” (Azad 63). The capitalization of God, and the first capitalization in the text, could be like a declaration of faith or trust in God. The use of They, and her talk of her sexuality show us so much about her own journey of faith. Though she was born Muslim, as she states by the lips of her father, she no longer lets others expectations of what Islam means affect how she lives as a Muslim. Not her father, or the qari, or money, or her mother, or her trauma, or her love. She trusts God. 

The Nation of Islam provided a new image of Black American identity–one that represented order, protection, and purity to historically oppressed and demonized people. To White Americans, this image of domesticity threatened their own caricatures of identity and hierarchy. Many of the principles the Nation of Islam adopted, however, were influenced heavily by what members had experienced and seen from White hierarchy. One significant example of this is shown through their strict and traditional gender roles.

According to Chan-Malik, members of the Nation of Islam “were drawn to the group’s strict implementation of traditional gender roles and saw them as a means to reverse the breakdown of the Black family that had occurred under slavery” (76). Slavery, the subjugation of Black people under Whites, involved many brutal practices including cutting off ties to any familial relative or homeland, the constant threat of separating family units and loved ones, the mass rape and sexual violence of Black men and women, and forced child-rearing. I highlighted these few examples to illuminate how the historic destruction of the Black family unit by white people impacted the more recent gender politics of the Nation of Islam. 

Black women were especially attracted to the structure set up by the Nation of Islam, which had them act out domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing. A lot of the appeal was through messaging. People like Elijah Muhammad and especially Malcolm X preached how Black woman were pure, innocent, and revered–terms which had been “equated with white womanhood and thereby femininity—both privileged spheres in our society; spheres where black women have been historically denied” (84). The very core of the Nation of Islam’s organization relies on the subject of a man being able to “elevate” and “protect” his woman; thus the woman must be the object of protection and reverence. It’s not a coincidence that much of this ideology surrounding dominant men and subservient women reflect traditionally White patriarchal values as this was their main frame of reference for masculinity and what it looked like. In fact, the main reason White men in America felt so threatened by these images of Black Muslims was because it represented a loss of their own dominant positioning in hierarchy, both over women and Black people. The idea that this group of Black Muslims could overtake them in this area of patriarchy was deeply troubling to them. 

“In 1959, a vision of strong Black families, anchored by images of virtuous Black women engaged in domestic duties, was critical to Malcolm X’s “proper presentation” of Black Muslim life” (94). One such depiction from the Nation of Islam’s magazine, “The Messenger”, showcases a “typical Mosslem family” with the women on one side of the photo and the men on the other as if there is an invisible line between the two. The mother is shown with a child, indicating the role of bearing and raising children as a central duty of Black Muslim women. The female children are shown well-dressed and reading a book, a stark contrast to what most of White America associated the Black image with. In this way, the Nation of Islam presented itself as a safe harbor for Black people, and particularly Black women who wanted to be associated with a strain of femininity they had been closed off from by White people. The emphasis by the Nation of Islam on education, as well, served to add dignity into Black women’s lives. Although it should be noted, the heavy implication of the photograph’s tagline is that a woman should be educated first, by a man. She is not independent from him, but rather dependent on him.

The image also holds a specific spot for men in the family, as the photo shows the father as large and imposing–clearly the head of the household. Unlike the woman, who is staring at the camera, his head is bowed to his book. To his right, another man stands with his hands collapsed in front of him almost like a soldier on guard, seemingly protecting the women of the family. For men, the patriarchal values of the Nation of Islam were a way for them to take back power in their lives, which was dominated by a feeling of helplessness at the violent hands of White people. “With their women in check, strong Black Muslim men could shame emasculated white American men in crisis by exerting their own power and virility, thus signifying the imminent possibility of Black political and cultural insurgency” (92). The Nation of Islam provided an outlet for these men to exert control over their wives and daughters, and to also feel a sense of superiority over their oppressors. Chan-Malik also talks about James Baldwin’s experience meeting Elijah Muhammad as follows: “Just as he feels the presence of a strong, protective, and effective father in Muhammad, he also experiences the power of “Islam” as a logic and space of racial-gendered belonging for Black men” (103). As the organization allowed Black men to feel power and independence in their lives, it also gave them a leader to follow and look towards–a leader that was in their eyes compassionate and accepting–whether that be Elijah Muhammad or God in their image. In this way, the men of the Nation of Islam saw themselves as protectors of women, but also as protected by their faith from a world which had abused and rejected them.

Overall, the Nation of Islam relied heavily on gender politics in its messaging and in its practice. Many members of the Nation of Islam found refuge from the “breakdown of the Black family” through their tightly held gender roles, which were influenced by and closely resembled the traditionally White patriarchal structure. 

Islam in America, specifically the Nation of Islam, provided a new image of Black American identity–one that represented order, protection, and purity to historically oppressed and demonized people. To White Americans, this image of domesticity threatened their own sense of hierarchy. While seemingly subversive, the optics and ideology of Nation of Islam act inherently in response to white supremacist attitudes in America, and replicate many of the goals of white supremacy. 

The chasm that was created in Black American’s history through slavery also fabricated a spiritual need for answers and a physical need for order, which the Nation of Islam fulfilled for many. Muhammad and the Nation of Islam “has taught them “knowledge of ourselves . . . that makes it possible for us [Black Americans] to obtain freedom, justice, and equality in the world, no matter what the white man thinks, no matter what the white man does” (Chan-Malik 83). 

Much of what attracted Black Americans to the Nation of Islam were its strict rules and traditional family and gender roles. Members “saw them as a means to reverse the breakdown of the Black family that had occurred under slavery” (77). This physical need for order after centuries of nonsensical, inhumane racialized violence–was fulfilled by the Nation of Islam, where “rules were strictly enforced, and the individual god within each black person was acknowledged and respected.” (84). 

The need to be respected as a human being–as a Black human being, then, was a driving factor in the motivation of Black Americans to join the Nation of Islam. The ideology of the organization even answered unexplainable questions about “why” Black Americans had suffered such cruelty for so long at the hands of white people. “Whites, however, were the product of a mad scientist named Yacub, who grafted them as a new race of devils” (82). This mythologizing of white people as “devils”, thus un-human, explained and soothed the unease that comes with questioning the extent of human subjugation over each other. 

A big appeal of the Nation of Islam was the taking back of power, which had always been held by white people. Black women, specifically, were attracted to the idea of being seen as pure, innocent, and revered–terms which had been “equated with white womanhood and thereby femininity—both privileged spheres in our society; spheres where black women have been historically denied” (84). In this same way, the patriarchal values established in the Nation of Islam gave emasculated Black men power over their women and their lives, which were constantly under threat. These traditional gender and family roles were reflections of the White American ideal at the time–something that was being threatened by liberalization, expanded post-war capital markets, and advancement of women’s rights.

Writer’s Q: Does my thesis effectively answer the prompt? Can I make this topic more narrow in any way?

I think it’s interesting how the author talks about white anxieties revolving the portrayal of the NOI community as extremely patriarchal and their women as subservient in their mission of a “racism against the whites”. It’s fascinating how some of these white people seem to only be able to believe in and conceptualize racism when it is directed at them, as opposed to acknowledging any type of structural racism they have championed. “With their women in check, strong Black Muslim men could shame emasculated white American men in crisis by exerting their own power and virility, thus signifying the imminent possibility of Black political and cultural insurgency”(92). This anxiety ignores that the NOI was specifically emulating the white patriarchy many had witnessed (91), and also the fact that as Black people had been put by whites on a completely different trajectory from them, what their family unit and cultural values looked like was bound to be different until actual equality would be achieved. I also found it interesting how the author brought up Cold War anxieties about race and gender–how the U.S. government wasn’t so keen on any Civil Rights Movement, but now the world was watching them. It undercut ideas of American exceptionalism of the “freedom” and “democracy” only found in the U.S., while they also actively had second-class citizens (89). If this was the freedom and democracy America promised, nations wouldn’t side with them over the Soviets when we eventually invaded their country (they didn’t want it anyway).

This film made me think about how religion is affected mostly by people’s environment and circumstances. Like the documentary portrayed, for example, it was easy for many Black people to believe in Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam’s message because they had seen directly the vast horrific and hellish harm caused by white people towards them. Like Malcom said, they had been stripped of their religious and cultural heritage to Africa, and were made to feel inferior, and sometimes worship the white man. It makes sense that they would want to see themselves reflected in their religion and in history (depicting Jesus as a pale man). In Nation of Islam, Black is Divine, as opposed to every negative adjective many Black people were made to believe.

This is also backed up by a lot of the NOI’s doctrine, which is highly racialized and claims God as Black, the original people of the Earth as Black, as well as the scientists that ruled over it and a rogue scientist which created the white race which took over. This would all change in the 20th century, according to Elijah. Malcom X’s talks, though, drew crowds due to the activist side of things–of preaching freedom, self-sufficiency, and liberation to a group of people who’d been brutalized and oppressed by America. Elijah Muhammad was not interested in Black liberation like Malcom was, and was in all ways a false prophet. He was murdered hand in hand by members of the NOI after his split from them and the US government, like many Black revolutionaries at this time. The super-charged movement towards Black liberation ended in blood, and what replaced it was nothing of any real threat or opposition to American capitalist, white supremacist hegemony. I think that is clear with what we are seeing today.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/malcolmx-elijah-muhammad-and-nation-islam

https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/stories/malcolm-x-part-iv-malcolm%E2%80%99s-rendezvous-death-and-beyond

Something that immediately stood out to me in the book was how the immigrant Muslims in the community felt a superiority to the established African Americans of the Mosque. “Meanwhile, earnest young Dawah members like the Shamys attended juma at Masjid Salam and felt free to tell the Afro-American brethren how to run things, despite the fact that, as far as the number of years in Islam went, many of the birth-Muslims hadn’t been awakened to their Islamic consciousness any earlier than the converts had converted” (31). It’s similar to what Karim wrote about how they looked for a purer “true” Islam, and looked down on the African American communities. This is also apparent in the briefly mentioned conflict between the majority Sunnis and the Shias, as well as most people mentioned in the novel, as all of them are different in some way, though connected through Islam. Khadra’s mother views Americans as undignified, uncultured, dirty, and overall sinful. Cleanliness comes up throughout the novel, and it is driven often by her. She sobs, “We are not Americans!” (67), driven by her fear that her children might be hurt in this seemingly “foreign” land, something which becomes all the more real when we learn of Zuhura’s murder and rape, as well as the constant bullying and threats that the Muslim community faces. It was also interesting how the police wrongfully suspected her husband in the name of fighting “honor killings” and “Islamic suppression of women”. This is such an accurate portrayal of how America pretends to care about oppressed minorities or suffering people around the world when they are often at the root of their suffering and only doing so to further their political agenda.