Puritan Islam by Vann Barry A

Author:Vann, Barry A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publisher Services

Introduction

On behalf of an African American community, a young Jordanian American man named Rami Nashashibi, executive director of a Chicago-based Muslim organization called the Inner City Action Network (IMAN), spoke before a gathering of middle-aged, well-dressed immigrant Muslims. The purpose of his speech was to ignite their passions and sympathies for underprivileged, inner-city folk against the economic power structure of the United States that, he believes, discriminates against the African American community. Nashashibi lectured his audience, informing them of their responsibilities to fellow Muslims in the inner city: “You want to build a mosque at the crossroads of the American dream, but you can't afford to ignore the problems of society.…I don't want, and you shouldn't want the American dream that is built on complacency. We must be engaged with the issues of America, the marginalized and oppressed; we must engage to transform society.”1 He never provided his audience with a clear depiction of what he meant by transforming society, but one thing is for certain, he wanted them to know that his adopted community needed their sympathy and, by extension, their economic and political support. His speech to immigrant Muslims on behalf of African American Muslim converts living mostly in the inner city suggests that there are two distinct Muslim communities in the United States. One community is filled with Muslim immigrants who have managed to flourish in their new country, and the other is still waiting to enjoy prosperity in the land in which they were born and raised.

While there are theological issues that clearly separate members of the American organization called the Nation of Islam (NOI) from other Shia and Sunnis living in America, a major factor separating Sunni converts, who are likely to be African American, from the immigrant community is assimilation.2 Aminah McCloud, a member of the NOI and professor at DePaul University, echoes Nashashibi's central concern. At the same time, McCloud argues that the separation of American Muslims into either immigrant or American-convert communities has occurred because immigrants are too consumed with pursuing the American dream to be concerned about the plight of fellow Muslims living in urban areas.3 “[I]n their pursuit of the American dream and whiteness,” she argues, “the new arrivals have largely ignored African American Muslims and have assumed that immigrant Muslims can impose their understanding of Islam on African Americans.”4 With respect to economic dissimilarities between immigrants and African American converts, she is correct. For the time being, at least, the numbers of immigrant Muslims achieving middle-class status far outpaces that of their African American counterparts.5

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