Black muslims in the United States

Demographics

Black Muslims make up a significant portion of American Muslims. The term Black Muslims includes African American, African, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino, and other African Diasporic Muslims in the United States, although traditionally it has been used as a synonym for African American Muslims (the descendants of enslaved Africans) (see Black Muslims and African American Muslims). The data from Pew Research Center and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding indicate that between 20-28% of the American Muslim population identifies as Black. Pew also cites that nearly 50% of Black Muslims are converts to Islam. The majority of Black Muslims are Sunni Muslims, although Shia and other Black Muslim communities exist and thrive across the country.

Black Muslims are predominantly northeasterners and urban residents. 31% are reported to have not been born in the United States, indicating about a third of Black American Muslims are immigrants to the United States. Common origin locations of migration include Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Nigeria, among others.

There are specific American cities where the population of Black Muslims is particularly high. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is one of those places, once referred to as “Muslim Town,” where majority of Muslims in the city are reported to be Black. In the southeast, look to places like Atlanta, Georgia, with the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam being the largest and oldest Muslim community in metro Atlanta. Its congregants are predominantly Black.

History

Enslaved African Muslims

Islam in the United States begins with Black Muslims. In 1522, a man by the name of Mustafa Zemmouri was enslaved by Portuguese  explorers, and accompanied them on their journey to the Americas within the 16th century. He was one of the first Africans to encounter the Americas. (Laila Lalami's fictional memoir about his life became a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist in 2015.) After 1492 and the beginning of European colonization of the Caribbean and later on the continental United States and Canada, Muslims were among the enslaved Africans brought to the Americas. Research estimates vary, but according to Dr. Sylviane Diouf, 7-10% of all the enslaved West Africans brought to the Americas were Muslims. This amounts to as many as one million Muslims from among the 10 million Africans who survived the Middle Passage.

Muslims in the United States remained a part of the American story, even fighting in the Revolutionary War. Old Lizzy Gray (her original name is unknown), enslaved in South Carolina for nearly a hundred years, arrived during this time. Her obituary appeared in the New York Times in 1860, written by her enslaver and acknowledging her Islamic heritage and education. Some Black Muslims were able to write in Arabic, communicate with family overseas, secure their own manumission, and establish Muslim communities of marooners on islands to continue to cultivate faith-based community and escape enslavement. Throughout the 19th century, there are accounts of enslaved Muslims, among the most famous are the stories of Yarrow Mamout (from the book From the Slave Ship to Harvard), Bilali Muhammad, Omar ibn Said, and Abdul Rahman Ibrahima ibn Sori (from the book and film, a Prince Among Slaves).

Moorish Science Temple of America

The Moorish Science Temple of America was founded in the 1920s by Noble Drew Ali with the aim of reconnecting African Americans to their Moorish or “Asiatic” origins and their Islamic faith. He constructed a religious tradition that pulled from multiple well-known faiths including Islam.

For more information, see African American Islam and Moorish Science Temple.

Ahmadiyya

The Ahmadiyya identify as an Islamic group led and founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The Ahmadiyya or Ahmadi, believe Ahmad to be the Madhi, or Messiah, divinely sent at the end of times. Ahmadi Muslims began proselytizing to the African American community in the 1920s, garnering many followers in the first half of the 20th century, and creating one of the most influential and first multiethnic Muslim community experiences for African American Muslims. The community operates its headquarters in Washington DC.

See: African American Muslims, Ahmadiyya in the United States

Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam (NOI) was founded in 1930 by WD Fard (also known as W. F. Muhammad) in Detroit, Michigan, and later led by Elijah Muhammad from 1934-1975 in Chicago, Illinois. The NOI’s teachings were informed by the Ahmadi’s messianic tradition of the Mahdi, the Moorish Science Temple’s notion of an alternative ethnic identity for African Americans, and Black nationalism of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Prominent members of the NOI included Malcolm X, who left the NOI and established Muslim Mosque Inc. more closely aligned with Sunni Islam,  and Muhammad Ali, who also made the transition to Sunni Islam after Elijah Muhammad’s passing in 1975. The current Nation of Islam is led by Minister Louis Farakhan, with tens of thousands of followers around the country.

For more information, see African American Islam and Nation of Islam.

Community of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed

In 1975, following the death of Elijah Muhammad, his son, Wallace (Warith) Deen Mohammed assumed leadership over the Nation of Islam. Imam Warith Deen was a practitioner of Sunni Islam, and shifted the organization from any of  his father’s teachings that did not align with orthodoxy and he purposfully did not self-identify the community as Sunni, perferring instead only the designation of  “Muslim.” The sweeping changes he made to bring the organization in alignment with orthodoxy led to Minister Farrakhan splitting from the community in 1977 and recreating the Nation of Islam with theology and practices as taught by Elijah Muhammad. Despite the split, Imam Mohammed moved steadily forward with teaching traditional Islam and his community underwent several name changes through the years, including World Community of Al-Islam in the West. After stepping down as the leader in favor of a council of imams, he founded the American Society of Muslims. He eventually resigned from ASM and went on to found The Mosque Cares, a Chicago-based community initiative. Imam Mohammed was one of the most influential Black American Muslim leaders of the later 20th century. In 1977, he led the-then largest ever delegation of American Muslims to hajj and is credited with being responsible for the singlest largest covnersion of Muslims to orthodox Islam in American history. Today, mosques across the country continue to identify as part of the community of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, and maintain some of the institutional features of ASM, as well as engaging with The Mosque Cares, which is currently run by Imam Mohammed’s son, Warith Deen Mohammed II.

See: Warith Deen Mohammed, The Mosque Cares, American Society of Muslims, African American Muslims

Shia

Within the United States, there is a population of Black American Shias. One notable community can be found with the New York Twelver community. There are Black Shia Muslims across the nation, spanning from Black Shia converts and their families, to African Shias and African diaspora Shias who immigrate to the United States and their families. Shia Muslims are a religious minority and face persecution in many parts of the world, included places in West Africa, like Nigeria, and non-Black Muslim nations like Pakistan. Black Muslim Shias face compunded marginalization due to to their race, their religion, and their sect.

See: Shia Islam, Shia Islam in Africa

Salafi

Salafism is a form of Sunnism that developed out of Suadi Arabia and began to gain popularity in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. Salafism, referring to the salaf, or the early practitioners of Islam, invokes a much more literal translation of the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) than other forms of Islam. Often labeled as fundamentalism, Salafism can sometimes be associated  with much more Conservative and Arabian style dress, as well as stricter interpretations about what is and is not disbelief. Black Salafi communities also consist of both African American and African immigrant and diaspora communities, but are often associated with certain features of African American Islamic culture in northern cities, such as Philadelphia.

See: Salafi, African American Muslims, Islam in the United States

Sufi

Sufism in the Black  Muslim Community has its orgins on the African continent in east and west Africa, and it traveled throughout the diaspora along with African Muslims. Sufism within the Black American community is diverse and includes many different tariqas or spiritual pathways, as well as a variety of Black Muslim Scholarship in the United States associated with different sufi branches. Both African immigrant communities and African American communities participate in Sufi practices and community spaces across the country. Exact population estimates do not exist at this time.

See: Sufism, African American Muslims, Islam in the United States

Black Muslim Immigrant Communities

The Black Muslim American communtiy is not a monolith. Ethnicities include Afro-Latino, Afro-Caribbean, and African Muslims from West Africa, Central African, South Africa, and East Africa. Additionally, some Black Muslims immigrate to the United States from countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, creating layers of communal diversity.

The Black Muslim community is further complicated by its own diversity. Immigrant Black Muslims, along with second-generation Black Muslims are not always perceived as the same as African American Muslims, due to variations in culture, language, Islamic practice, and history in the United States. Although Black Muslim spaces may not always be intergeted across cultural lines, there are clear shared experiences of racism and colorism both outside of the Muslim community and within it.

Notable books and films about Black American Muslims

To learn more you can visit the Black Islam Syllabus

• A Prince Among Slaves - Film and Book
• Islam and the African American Experience by Richard Turner - Book
• Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards a Third Resurrection by Sherman A Jackson - Book
• Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering - Book
• Malcolm X – Spike Lee
• Muslim Cool - Book
• Servants of Allah - Book
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley

Black Islam Syllabus

The Black Islam Syllabus is curated by Dr. Kayla Renée Wheeler, and can be accessed through Google Docs. It contains a comprehensive list of scholarly and cultural resources about a variety of topics relating to Black Muslims, the History of Islam in the Black Community, and Black Islamic Practice. The Syllabus has been offered as a resource by organizations like Muslim ARC, Sapelo Square, and the Family and Youth Institute (FYI). A link to it can be found here.

Notable Black Muslim Artists and Public Figures

A majority of America’s most famous Muslims have been Black. This is a working list of notable Black Muslim American entertainers, artists, and politicians.

Existing Organizations and Institutions:

Here is a working list of organizations led by Black American Muslims and/or centered around Black American Muslims.

• America’s Islamic Heritage Museum
• Azizah Magazine
• Believers’ Bailout
• Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN)
• International Museum of Muslim Cultures
• Islah LA
• Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA)
• Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (ARC)
• Muslim Wellness Foundation
• National Council of Nigerian Muslim Organizations
• Sapelo Square
• The community of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed
• The Mosque Cares
• The Nation of Islam

Anti-Blackness in the Muslim community:

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) found that American Muslims are the most racially and ethnically diverse religious group in the United States. But this diversity has been met with challenges, including anti-Black racism. The use of racial slurs such as the Arabic word for slaves, Abeed, has been called out as a specific way that racism is displayed within American Muslim spaces. Refusal to marry Black Muslims, discomfort interacting with Black Muslims, prevalent colorism in social spaces, and looking down on Black Muslims and African American Muslims in particular due to assumptions about their intelligence, social economic status, or authenticity of their Islamic practice are all cited examples of anti-Black racism within American Muslim communities. A 2018 poll conducted by ISPU found that 66% of Black American Muslims reported facing racial discrimination broadly, and 33% of Black American Muslims surveryed reported facing discrimination from within their religious community.

These experiences of intra-community racism are not limited to African American Muslims. Black Muslims from Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, Senegal, and other African diasporic communities have reported incidents of both racism and anti-Blackness in the public sphere and within shared environments with non-Black Muslims, including Muslim student organizations on college campuses across the country, spurring the #BlackInMSA hashtag in 2015. The difficulties of racism are compounded with those of Islamophobia for Black Muslims, increasing the community's need for specialized organizations and programs to speak to the unique experiences of Black Muslims in the United States.

After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in June of 2020, there was an increase in American Muslim community organizations and institutions seeking to learn more about anti-racism and anti-Blackness. Organizations, like the Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim umbrella organization in the United States, as of June 2020, did not have any Black Muslims on its board of directors, have faced calls to diversify their leadership. Black Muslim abolitionists and activitsts pushed local mosques to back away from relationships with local and national law enforcement. In 2020, ISPU reported that a signfiicant portion of the American Muslim Community expressed support for Black Lives Matter, particularly among young people.

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