Between immigrant islam and black liberation: Young muslims inherit global muslim and African American legacies (original) (raw)

T he notion of Muslims on the Americanization Path? , the title of an anthology edited by John Esposito and Yvonne Haddad, forces us to imagine immigrant Muslim identity in terms of assimilation to American values. 1 It also pushes us to ask, "Are African American Muslims also undergoing Americanization? Would this mean that they are not fully American?" This double response to the concept of Americanizing Muslims warrants further analysis. American Muslim identity is both an immigrant and an African American formation, and to study Muslim identity as a process of assimilation, where Muslims are theorized as "Other" vis-à-vis Anglo Protestants, leaves unexplored how intra-ummah (Muslim community) relations shape American Muslim identity. 2 Here, I analyze how immigrant Muslims, primarily of Arab and Asian backgrounds, impact African American Muslim youth identities. In this more complicated process, multiple cultural identities-African, American, Asian, and Arab-combine with and contest each other in the creation of American Muslim identities. Immigrant Muslim influence on African Americans reflects a double narrative: one shows immigrants using Islam to appeal to African American interests, the other shows them privileging (and imposing) Arab and Asian cultural practices associated with Islam. Both show immigrants preserving Muslim identity in America. The American organization that has had the most enduring impact on American Muslim identity, as perceived by both Muslims and non-Muslims, is T  M  W  • V  95 • O  2005 498 the Nation of Islam (NOI). 3 When its leader Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son and successor W. D. Mohammed turned the NOI community toward global Sunni Islam. Although he initiated a series of changes including the name, the theological position, and the economic structure of the former organization, the new leader retained a sense of connection and homage to the NOI's legacy of cultural and political empowerment. In the 21st century, young African American Muslims, born and raised Muslim, continue to build on this legacy. One young man raised in a W. D. Mohammed (WDM) 4 community stated the following in a speech to his WDM peers: "Our older generation will die, and the legacy will be put in our hands. If we don't know our history, if we don't know all that comes with leading our community, then we will let our leader's [Imam W. D. Mohammed's] work go in vain." 5 How do we describe the cultural contours of this legacy that grounds African American Muslim youth experiences? It is a legacy distinctly African American, yet at the same time inextricably linked to immigrant Muslim efforts to preserve and propagate the faith in a new homeland. My approach, analyzing immigrant Muslim experiences as part of the broader formation of African American Muslim identities, shifts from studies of immigration in the context of assimilation processes to studies of immigration in the context of U.S. domestic movements of "civil rights and ethnic reaffirmation." 6 Facing not only white hegemony, Muslim immigrants also encounter African Americans, an ethnic minority with a history of resistance and response to multiple forms of discrimination. Highlighting encounters outside the majority Anglo American arena, I show how immigrants negotiate, adopt, and contribute to American culture through engagement in race, class and gender movements. Therefore, rather than asking how Muslim immigrants Americanize, I ask how they forge new and distinct identities in America. Shaping Muslim identities, immigrant Muslims become indelibly linked to African Americans, the ethnic community most enamored with the new American faith. Immigrant Muslims and African Americans: Early Encounters Young African American Muslims inherit a very American history. It is a history of native-born residents and immigrants, their unexpected encounters and also their tensions. While most migration narratives indicate that Arab and Asian Muslims came to the U.S. to pursue educational and economic opportunities, the Ahmadis (Ahmadiyya movement), a missionary group from India, saw America as an opportunity to spread Islam in the West. The Ahmadis arrived in the U.S. in 1920 and began their missionary activities in Detroit, soon discovering that their teachings appealed less to whites than to African Americans. In response, the Ahmadis projected Islam as a