Today, in the western world, when we hear the word “Muslim” or “Islam”, many Americans tend to think that they are terrorists or people from the Middle East (the uneducated). As of 2017, there are at least 3 to 3.5 million American Muslims living in the United States of America. The majority ethnic group that makes up this population is the African American people. However, the question “How does this happen?” arises. If you want to know the history of Muslims in the United States and its great diffusion, you cannot talk about this topic without mentioning Africans or we should say the trip of African Americans to Al-Islam.
In the transatlantic slave trade there were between 15 and 20 million Africans enslaved and of these slaves there were between 2% and 4% African Muslims. These Muslims were from the Mandinka, Fulani, Wolof, Soninke, Songhai, Ashanti, Taureg, Nupi, Yoruba, Susa, Kanuri, Mandara, and Vai tribes. We all know and have learned from Alex Haley’s book (and movie) Roots, which was a story about an enslaved African Muslim named Kunta Kinte, where he lived in a small village in West Africa, practiced Islam, was a student of Arabic and he lived his daily African rituals. He was captured and brought to America as a slave, sold, and given the name Toby. She tried to escape from captivity countless times and married a cook named Bell, where they had a daughter named Kizzy who later had many children. There is also documentation and stories where you can find information about other enslaved African Muslims like; S’Quash, The Moor, Phillip The Fula, Sambo, Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, Lamine Kebe, Lamine Ndiaye, Yarrow Mamout, Charles Larten, William Rainesford and many more, all well educated and literate in math, Arabic, science, and different languages spoken. Throughout the years of slavery, the African people were oppressed and their cultural and religious practices were repressed. Slaves took names of their slave owners as identity of one’s property and Christianity was imposed on them. Generation after generation, Al-Islam had finally dissipated.
In the 20th century, between 1900 and 1975, there were many African American civil rights activists and leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Father Divine, Noble Drew Ali, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who brought different teachings and ideologies to African American communities to make black more self-aware, self-sufficient and to improve themselves socially and economically within these communities. Since the theme is “The Journey of African Americans to Al-Islam”, Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Movement was one of the first and earliest movements to bring the African American people back to Islam. Ali’s teachings did not come from the Holy Qur’an nor did the Temple of Moorish Science follow any practices of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but his claim was the teaching of Islam or “Islam”. The practices of the Temple of Moorish Science had some correlation with mainstream Al-Islam. For example, followers stood and faced east during prayers, their religious service and prayer were on Fridays, gender separation in the seats, women instructed to wear a headscarf or turban, men used a red fez at all times and dressed modestly. Noble Drew Ali also wrote his own Quran, calling it “Circle 7 of the Quran”.
The number of followers of Moorish science today is not specifically known, but it has been estimated that there are around 10,000 scattered across 15 different cities in the United States. Half of this movement was followed by the Temple of Allah of Islam, which was started by Fard Muhammad in 1930; the name would change to the lost Nation of Islam, where Minister Elijah Muhammad would succeed Fard Muhammad as leader and eventually lead the Nation of Islam. As time passed, he assumed the title of prophet and messenger of Allah, and Fard clearly identified himself as Allah or the incarnation of Allah. This is not what Muslims believe. Muslims believe that there is only one Gd and that only he has no partners, no associates, was not born, would die or have children and that Muhammad (PBUH) is the seal of all the prophets and he is the last messenger. . The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught the knowledge of Gd, of himself and of being independent of himself. In 1960, the Nation of Islam had 69 temples spread over 27 states, and membership was believed to have reached 100,000.
Two years later, some estimates put the NOI’s membership at 250,000 and peaking at 1 million members. The NOI was also extremely active in promoting the African American economy and had established a number of successful companies in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, the NOI owned supermarkets, bakeries, clothing stores, restaurants, department stores, and numerous establishments providing various services. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad mentored Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan, and Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad had 7 children and of those seven children was Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, born as Wallace Delaney Muhammad. His name was chosen for him by Fard Muhammad, who predicted that the newborn would one day succeed Elijah Muhammad as the leader of the Nation of Islam. Wallace was only about 12 years old when he first realized the discrepancies between the message of the Qur’an and his father’s teachings. Due to his refusal to be drafted into the army, in 1961 he was sentenced to three years in prison. He had time to study the Qur’an and when he returned to the Nation of Islam he hoped to transform it into a truly Islamic movement.
Following the death of his father on February 25, 1975, Wallace became the Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam and immediately began a process of change that would result in the largest conversion of people to Al-Islam in American history. . In 1976, he changed the name from the Nation of Islam to the World Community of Al-Islam in the West and changed his own name to Warith Deen Mohammed. He led a systematic and massive movement of his followers into the fold of orthodox Al-Islam. He taught the five obligatory prayers, Ramadan, Zakat and encouraged Hajj. In 1992, Imam Mohammed became the first Muslim to perform morning prayers in the United States Senate. Today, Imam Mohammed’s teachings still serve as a spiritual and religious guide for approximately 2.5 million Muslims in the United States. It is likely that he has influenced the conversion of more people to Islam than any other Muslim in the world today.
To conclude, the journey to Al-Islam for the African American people has been a long but successful struggle. It is a coincidence that there are approximately 3 to 6 million African Muslim slaves in the slave trade, and there are currently about 2 million African American Muslims in the United States of America. It is a coincidence that even non-Muslim African Americans have Muslim names like: Ahmad, Rasheed, Jamal, Kamal, Aisha, Jamela, Tariq, Shakur, Jaleel, Malik, Malika, Khadijah, and Amina, just to name a few. Although Al-Islam reached African American communities in a corrupt manner, these pioneers were “stepping stones” for the African American people to come to the light of the Holy Quran and follow the practices of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). If Gd wants it, then it will be.