I’m part of the organizing committee in the early stages of planning for a conference about Islam in America. The fact that we were here before September 11th is one fact that keeps motivating us this time around. There have been plenty of conferences about Islam held in America, and there have been many discussions about Muslims who live in America, even if not in a conference. However, all of the dynamics changed after the terrorist attacks in America on September 11, 2001.
It is true that of the more public players on the scene of Islam in America, many are Muslims from Muslim majority countries who previously wanted to keep their Islam in the closet. Then the events of September 11th shook the proverbial skeletons out of that closet. And lo and behold, now they are Muslims and they are the primary spokepersons about this new popular trend of Islam in America.
Some even made a considerable amount of money off of their version of the “I am your friendly neighborhood Muslim; and I am an American;” as if Muslims didn’t exist in America before they became spokespersons. Or maybe it is the “friendly” part. For surely Islam became erroneously equated with terrorism after September 11th.
Don’t get me wrong, the attacks on American soil were terrorist attacks, and they were terrible. They were committed by Muslims, and they were terrible. But how we reduce over a billion people world wide, to the meager number (who, globally do not form even a fraction of 1% of Muslims) is frankly unfathomable. But there you have it. Maybe these friendly neighborhood-spokespersons appeal to the mainstream American sentiment because they tend to all do two things in continual succession: 1) They keep saying they are “American”; 2) They keep apologizing for those who did commit terror, who are Muslims. Some of these had claimed to be acting in the name of Islam, but really it was for their own personal causes.
I never, ever, apologize for terrorism. I never commit it and so I do not bear any personal responsibility for it. This is hard for some people to hear. Just like it is hard for many black people to hear white people say they are not responsible for slavery, since they did not have slaves. Therefore they have nothing to apologize for. In both cases what is said is true. However, the consequences of race-based slavery in America have benefited every white person in America, ever since. The consequences of the terrorist attacks in America on September 11th has not benefited Muslims in America—except for those spokes persons who have literally capitalized on it to promote the “friendly neighborhood” variety. In fact, most of us lost and lost a great deal.
That being said, I do however condemn terrorism. But I am not selective. I do not just condemn terrorism done by fellow Muslims; I condemn terrorism done against fellow Muslim—whether as a civil act of disobedience, or as a collective act of a powerful government. And because my condemnation of terrorism sits right there beside my condemnation of violence, oppression and coercion, it was not born out of September 11th. I condemned violence, terrorism, oppression, weapons, and war long from before I became a Muslim. Nothing has changed that perspective.
I don’t condemn it more now because of September 11th and I don’t condemn it any less either. If you cannot imagine a Muslim that condemns violence and terrorism then it is not a reflection on me it’s a reflection on you. And yes, I have advocated my position not only in America but all around the world — it’s my position. The same perspective that some Muslims use to justify mistreatment of outsiders, including violent mistreatment, is used to justify mistreatment of women inside Islam. I condemn it, and have done so for decades here and abroad. As regrettable as violence is, I don’t apologize for it. I don’t think an apology is beneficial. I think working for justice is beneficial and I did that: before and after September 11th, and I see no reason why I should not continue.
But here’s the thing: Muslims were here in America before September 11th. Most Muslims in America are not immigrants from Muslim majority countries or their offspring (whom I will call Brown Muslims). In fact, the largest single ethnic group of Muslims is African-Americans. The single mis-represented or under represented group of Muslims however is still African Americans.
You would think that white Americans who converted to Islam and raised families as Muslim would be the most under represented. But there has been a long standing fascination by “Brown” Muslims with white America so white Americas who become Muslim are often cast as spokespersons. I don’t know maybe this is just to “show” that Americans are Muslims too (and here you should read, tongue in cheek: white American, because obviously African-Americans are Americans).
In fact, the origin of Islam in America is through Muslim slaves brought over hundreds of years ago from Africa. Some estimates are that as many as one third of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslims. The record is emphatic: royalty, scholars, businessmen, Africans from all walks of life were caught up in the peculiar institution. That some one third of them were Muslim, believers in one God, sort slaps in the face of Biblical references used to justify race-based slavery. They were already monotheists in Africa when Christians came either to proselytize to or profit from Africans.
The earliest known ancestor on my mother’s side identified with being Muslim. I’d already been Muslim for 35 years before I learned of this. It was exciting at first, to think, well I’ve come home to Islam. But then, this ancestor is shared by all my relatives on that side. None of them are Muslim. So I realized it actually makes very little difference that I have Islam in my blood. It doesn’t make any difference that President Obama’s father was Muslim, albeit a secular, and non-practicing Muslim, because Obama gets to make his own choice; and it was not Islam. So he can stop apologizing for that too.
What I am still having a hard time fathoming is: why so many Americans still identify Islam as foreign? I mean, Christianity was imported with immigrant settlers and their next generations. Somehow it isn’t foreign, unless you are Native American, I guess.
It is true the most vibrant period of Islamic growth in America was not until the beginning of the 20th century. Then, Muslims grew in three ways: conversions, almost exclusively African-American, immigration, and next generations from these two, i.e. new births. Over the next 100 years, leading up to September 11, 2001, all three of these avenues continued with only slight variations and abatements of immigration, because the laws changed three times. In the middle part of the 20th century, the largest influx of immigrant Muslims came. Now again we experience great restrictions on immigration (and not just against Muslims).
The one constant in that picture was African-Americans. Ours is the story still not well known, despite our numbers. For one thing, after September 11th we were given a small reprieve. American prejudice and intolerance floated from us as African Americans, who happen to be Muslim, and focused on Muslims who happen to be Americans. Therefore the hatred built up against foreign Muslims immigrant and their offspring. More than a few African-American Muslims were content to sit back and watch this unfold. 1) Because we already knew white America was not so interested in the “tired, poor and humbled masses yearning to be free,” as the Statue of Liberty sign proclaims. And 2) because it let us off the hook, so to speak, from double indemnity: as African-Americans in a racist America and as Muslims in an Islamophobic America.
The emphasis of discrimination was put on Brown Muslims. Many of whom had hoped to melt into that illusive pot, and become full fledged (white) Americans by default. After all, immigration characterizes the America in the first place. So of course the consequence of this is rescripted in the newer friendlier versions, once again with Brown Muslims, no matter how they practice before or after September 11. The new version does not characterize African-American Muslims, no matter how long we’ve practiced.
I once designed a tee-shirt slogan to say: “Muslim by choice American by force.” When I described this at a luncheon table at this fancy-shmancy Islam and America conference in Qatar, a white guy at my table said, “That’s ridiculous. No one is American by force.” I said, “Well, now that is interesting. What about generations of slaves? There was no sign over the port when slave ships pulled in warning, “America, love it or leave it.” Surely we would have left then if we could.”
The thing is, however historical events unfold, the story is not being fully told. The story of Islam in America, which is the story of Muslim-Americans, is not being fully told. It’s not that we’re not talking; it’s that we are not being heard. It is regrettable, that such a thing as September 11 had to happen, any where, for anyone. Yet the results include greater access to America for a select Brown Muslim population. Still African-American Muslims outnumber them, and face double invisibility and erasure: from within and from without.
So, if you ever wonder why I don’t comment on some of the “top” stories in the news about Islam in America, I intentionally try not to respond to sensationalism. I don’t comment about a story if the story already gets enough media attention and if the story does not help script the dynamics of Islam in American in the ways in which it is internally diverse. Otherwise that would be simply jumping on a bandwagon. This week, a film produced and directed by a young African-American (whom I knew when he was a toddler), is opening up in Chicago. It opened last week in New York to grave reviews and a few awards. If you are near by I hope you check it out: “Mooz-lum”, the movie. It is not the story of every African-American Muslim but it is a story about African-American Islam, in one of its many reflections.
We are here. We were here before September 11, 2001. Since we survived the peculiar institution of race-based slavery in America, despite its dire conditions and consequences, we will be here for some time to come. Get used to us.
