African American Muslims

While in the scholarship on the NOI there has been much discussion about the press's coverage of the NOI in the early 1930s, there has been almost no attempt to analyze the group's own use of media to promote its message during this initial phase of the movement. In 1933 and 1934, NOI members wrote a number of letters and editorials that were published in both Detroit and nationally-distributed African American newspapers. And, in the late summer of 1934, the group published its first periodical, the Final Call to Islam. Although for the most part, the content of these publications simply reflects the known ideology of the NOI of the early 1930s, this chapter will argue that these pieces add depth to our understanding and appreciation of both early NOI voices and of what was important for the movement at the time. For instance, in addition to promoting Fard's principal doctrines about the origins and destiny of African Americans, there is a strong emphasis on the current activities of Muslims around the world, which shows for us how much the early NOI identified with Muslims generally. We also see a stress on having a proper diet and good health, echoing Fard's ideas about " how to eat to live. " Perhaps the most valuable aspect about these publications, however, is that they give us a closer look at the leaders and followers of the early NOI. We see, for example, how precisely early NOI members—including Elijah Muhammad, who wrote several of the pieces that will be examined—interpreted and put in their own words Fard's teachings. This gives us a better glimpse at how NOI ideas were constructed and expressed by its African American members at the time. Most scholarship discussing early NOI discourse has not relied on pieces written by followers during this initial phase of the NOI—instead, there has been a reliance on the group's official teachings written by Fard, original NOI members' interviews and speeches that were often recorded many years after 1934, and early 1930s sensationalist newspaper reports about the NOI, which often contained quotes from members that might have been edited or taken out of context. A brief comparison will be made between these 1930s pieces and some 1950s NOI writings. Finally, these early publications also give us a few small, but reliable and important details about the group's structure and growth at the time.

God & Apple Pie: Religious Myths and Visions of America
by Christopher Buck
Kingston, NY: Educator's International Press, 2015

Contents
Introduction, by J. Gordon Melton
Chapter 1: America: Nation and Notion
Chapter 2: Native American Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 3: Protestant Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 4: The Christian Right’s Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 5: Catholic Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 6: Jewish Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 7: Mormon Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 8: Christian Identity Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 9: Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 10: Contemporary Muslim Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 11: Buddhist Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 12: Baha’i Myths and Visions of America
Chapter 13: Conclusion: How Minority Faiths Redefined America’s World Role

Two sample chapters (by publisher's permission):
1.  Native American Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 2)
2.  Black Muslim Myths and Visions of America (Chapter 9)

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/God-Apple-Pie-Religious-Visions/dp/1891928155/

Introduction by J. Gordon Melton,
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Baylor University

Far from being an interesting additional topic for the religious dilettante, the discussion around the theological reality that is America, periodically bursts forth as an important item on the nation's agenda, from the place of prayer services in the White House, to the issuance of an annual government report on religious persecution, to the rise of contemporary terrorism. As one traces radical Islam, for example, one arrives at the writings of one Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who spent some of his younger years in America, and came away with his own vision of a country mired in sin and decadence. He would posit America as the image of everything he hoped to escape in promoting the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now, in all honesty, I must admit that over the years as I encountered all of the intriguing, even fascinating, ideas about America in the great cosmic scheme of things, I never got around to systematically gathering the different visions and trying to make sense of them in any detailed fashion. Thus, I have been more than happy to receive, and now with this modest introduction, pass along to my scholarly colleagues and the reading public the work of Christopher Buck.

During his years of observation and research, Buck has surveyed the spectrum of visions of America that have energized and motivated the America's religious community, and has selected from among them a sample that both (1) represents the spectrum of opinion about America and its importance, and (2) highlights the more important visions of America that have shaped and are continuing to shape the way we understand this country we call home. His work calls us to become self-conscious about the assumptions we use in our day-to-day movements that massage the ways we approach our neighbors, our colleagues at work, and the politicians for whom we vote.

Buck begins with the visions of America present at the founding of the nation, aspects of which still strongly permeate the culture today, and have found a new home among conservative Protestants in their innovative idea of Christian America. Amid the Protestant context, we often forget the role of the Roman Catholic Church, which became the largest religious body in America in the 1840s and is now three times larger than its nearest competitor. At the end of the nineteenth century, a controversy on Americanism would erupt around Catholic visions of their place in a changing world that would drive it from participation in the nation's public square for a half-century, and molded its reentrance after World War II.

And then there are all the other-than-Christian religions, from Ahmadiyya Muslims to Zoroastrians, all of which possess their its own vision of America that shapes their appropriation of life in the United States and guides their development as their place in the nation was challenged, then accepted, and most recently affirmed and even celebrated by the nation as a whole. We have watched as Buddhists have carved out a place as cultural peacemakers, Muslims have struggled with separation of religion and government, and Baha'is have tried to understand the communication of their founder, Baha'u'llah, with the presidents of the Americas collectively, and with 'Abdu'l-Baha's statements about the destiny of America in particular. All of this occurs in the ebb and flow of religious life. One day we envision the possible unity of America's religions only to be thrown up against the many harsh divisions, which motivates us once more to seek realms of agreement, which again highlights the array of issues that can drive wedges between those who accept the label "American" as part of their self-identity.

In conclusion, I can, as a scholar, reflect on the contribution that this book, Religious Myths and Visions of America: God and Apple Pie, is making to our understanding of the American mosaic and how various segments of the religious community have found their way to being American. As an informed citizen I welcome its information that allows me to empathize with and make informed decisions relative to those with whom I might align (or oppose) as I sally forth in the public square. And on a personal level, I welcome the author's invitation for me to meet anew the residents of my neighborhood, those who shop in the same stores I do, send their children to the same schools my grandchildren attend, and diligently work toward their own appropriation of the American dream.

J. Gordon Melton
Distinguished Professor of American Religious History
Baylor University

January 2015 — This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

This second edition of the Journal of Islamic Faith and Practice will discuss and analyze Islamic ‎Ethics in the American Context. The aim of this volume is to synthesize and advance both ‎theoretical and empirical research about Islamic ethics within various disciplines including ‎education, sociology, political science, healthcare, psychology, bioethics, ecology, social service, ‎the arts and other relevant areas. Colleagues interested in publishing the  the abstract for your doctoral or master's dissertation, proceedings of a ‎conference, and book reviews are also welcomed.‎

This entry explores enslaved African Muslim women’s spiritual resistance to enslavement in North America during the nineteenth century, with a focus on African Muslims enslaved in coastal Georgia and South Carolina. By turning to interviews of descendants of slaves, including former slaves, conducted by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s, this article considers the covert, private, and artful manner by which these enslaved African Muslim women contested the oppressive and dehumanizing system of enslavement. The concluding section examines the close alliance between religious practice and subversion among enslaved African Muslim women in the Americas, specifically in Brazil. By closely analyzing the Islamically-inflected calls, dress code, meal preparation, and amulet-making practices of these enslaved African Muslims, the entry reveals how these women deployed an Islamic epistemology that reframed the master-slave dialectic in order to confront and contest slave ideology.

Afrika Selatan merupakan sebuah negara Republik yang berada di selatan Afrika. Negara ini berbatasan dengan Namibia, Botswana dan Zimbabwe di utaranya, Mozambique da Swaziland di Timur Lautnya. Negara ini merupakan sebuah negara demokratik dan multiras dengan penduduk kulit putih terbesar di Benua Afrika serta mempunyai 11 bahasa resmi. Afrika Selatan terkenal dengan penghasil berlian, emas dan platinium yang utama di dunia hingga saat ini. Namun siapa sangka dibalik ketentraman mereka pada saat ini, Afrika Selatan mempunyai kisah pilu yang penuh akan perjuangan selama masa penindasan oleh politik Apartheid sejak tahun 1948.
Rezim Apartheid memberlakukan hukum rasialis yang menghapuskan sebagian hak asasi warga non kulit putih. Orang kulit putih yang secara nominal hanya berjumlah 1/6 persen dari total populasi rakyat Afrika Selatan menguasasi dua pertiga pendapatan nasional, sementara bangsa kulit hitam yang hampir berjumlah ¾ persen hanya memperoleh ¼ saja. Bahkan banyak orang kulit hitam yang menjadi budak sementara kulit putih menguasai sektor publik dan kelas menengah. Bahkan masih banyak lagi aturan-aturan lainnya yang menindas orang kulit hitam. Salah seorang yang tertindas tersebut ialah Farid Esack, seorang anak kecil yang di kemudian hari menjadi salah satu pahlawan perjuangan melawan penindasan oleh rezim Apartheid tersebut.
Di dalam buku On Being A Muslim ini, Esack menggambarkan bagaimana tantangan yang dihadapi oleh masyarakat Afrika Selatan selama masa ketertindasan oleh Apartheid. Dan pada akhirnya masalah-masalah inilah yang akan menjadi tantangan bagi Farid Esack dalam memperjuangkan kebebasan masyarakat Afrika Selatan dari tindakan diskriminasi oleh rezim apartheid.

... Caliph E. Muhammad, based in Baltimore, MD. ... Munir describes this transformation as "an African American pilgrimage toward coherence".23 Earlier to that, by the late 1950s, the Nation of Islam was drawing widespread media attention as a result of its rapid growth, and the ...