African-American Muslims, also known as Black Muslims, are an African American religious minority. African American Muslims account for over 20% of American Muslims. They represent one of the larger Muslim populations of the United States as there is no ethnic group that makes up the majority of American Muslims. They mostly belong to the Sunni sect, but smaller Shia and Nation of Islam minorities also exist. The history of African-American Muslims is related to African-American history in general, and goes back to the Revolutionary and Antebellum eras. October is Muslim African American Heritage Month.
History Islam has historically been the biggest organized religion in the continent of Africa. Historically, an estimated 30% of black slaves brought to the United States from Western and Central Africa were Muslims. They were overwhelmingly literate in contrast to non-Muslim slaves, and thus were given supervisory roles. These captives were forced into Christianity during the era of American slavery; however, there are records of individuals such as Omar ibn Said practicing Islam for the rest of their lives in the United States.Samuel S. Hill, Charles H. Lippy, Charles Reagan Wilson. Encyclopedia of religion in the South. Mercer University Press (2005), p. 394. . During the twentieth century, some African Americans converted to Islam, mainly through the influence of black nationalist groups that preached with distinctive Islamic practices including the Moorish Science Temple of America, founded in 1913, and the Nation of Islam, founded in the 1930s, which attracted at least 20,000 people by 1963. Prominent members included activist Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali.Jacob Neusner, World Religions in America: An Introduction, Westminster John Knox Press (2003), pp. 180–181. . Ahmadiyya Muslim groups also sought and won converts among African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s.
Malcolm X is considered the first person to start the movement among African Americans towards mainstream Islam, after he left the Nation and made the pilgrimage to Mecca.William W. Sales (1994). From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. South End Press, p. 37. . In 1975, Warith Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad took control of the Nation after his father's death and guided the majority of its members towards mainstream Sunni Islam.Uzra Zeya (1990-01) Islam in America: The Growing Presence of American Converts to Islam Washington Report on Middle East Reports. Retrieved November 16, 2009. However, a few members rejected these changes, leading Louis Farrakhan to revive the Nation of Islam in 1978 based largely on the ideals of its founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad.
Early American Muslims
Bilali Muhammad
Bilali Mohammed was an enslaved West African on a plantation on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Born in Timbo, Guinea between 1760 and 1779 to a well-educated African Muslim family. Renowned for his literacy, knowledge of Islam, and higher education than his slaveowners, Bilali was the leader and imam of a community of enslaved people, where he lived with his multiple wives and many children. He is best known for his handwritten, Arabic manuscript on West African fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The 19th century manuscript detailed Islamic beliefs and the rules for ablution, morning prayer, and the calls to prayer. In the 1940s it was taken to Nigeria to be translated by Hausa scholars. Today the manuscript has become one of the most sacred Islamic documents to African American Muslims. Bilali has many living descendants.
Omar Ibn Said
Omar Ibn Said was a Muslim scholar from Futa Toro (present-day Senegal) who was enslaved and transported to the United States in 1807. Born to a wealthy family in what would in a few years become the Imamate of Futa Toro, an Islamic theocratic state located along the Middle Senegal River in West Africa. Literate in Arabic, he is most known for his 14 Arabic manuscripts about his life and his theology. "Omar ibn Said was described as a 'staunch Mohammedan, and the first year at least kept the fast of Rhamadan with all great strictness.'”
Omar Ibn Said is one of the most celebrated figures in African American history and his works have become world famous. His autobiography is housed at The Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
Masjid Omar ibn Sayyid was opened in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1991 to honor his legacy.
Yarrow Mamout
Yarrow Mamout was a formerly enslaved entrepreneur and property owner in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Born in West Africa, he was kidnapped, enslaved, and taken to Annapolis, Maryland. He was educated and literate in Arabic because of his Islamic background. After being freed at the age of 60, he became a property owner and prominent investor. Mamout was known for praying and praising Allah in public and wearing traditional African Muslim clothing.
Mamout's son Aquilla purchased land in Washington County, Maryland and moved there with his wife, Mary Turner. The town of Yarrowsburg, Maryland, was named after her. Her great-grandnephew, Robert Turner Ford, graduated from Harvard University in 1927.
In 2023, Georgetown dedicated the Masjid Yarrow Mamout in honor of Mamout.
Demographics African-American Muslims constitute 20% of the total U.S. Muslim population. Despite this, 2% of Black Americans are Muslim (most adhere to various sects of Christianity, particularly Protestantism).
The majority are Sunni Muslims; a substantial proportion of these identify under the community of W. Deen Mohammed. Cities with large concentration of African-American Muslims include Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Newark, Washington. D.C., Philadelphia, and Atlanta. The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan has a membership ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 members.
Sects
During the first half of the 20th century, a small number of African Americans established groups based on Islamic and Gnostic teachings. The first of these groups was the Moorish Science Temple of America, founded by Timothy Drew (Drew Ali) in 1913. Drew taught that black people were of Moorish origin but their Muslim identity was taken away through slavery and racial segregation, advocating the return to Islam of their Moorish ancestry.Moorish Science Temple of America Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 13, 2009.
Sunni Islam
Sunni is a term derived from sunnah (سُنَّة /ˈsunna/, plural سُنَن sunan /ˈsunan/) meaning "habit", "usual practice", "custom", "tradition". The Muslims use this term to refer to the sayings and living habits of Muhammad. Its adherents are referred to in Arabic as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah ("the people of the sunnah and the community") or ahl as-sunnah for short. In English, its adherents are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis, Sunnites and Ahlus Sunnah. Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as "orthodox Islam". The Quran, together with hadith (especially those collected in Kutub al-Sittah) and binding juristic consensus form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. Sharia rulings are derived from these basic sources, in conjunction with analogical reasoning, consideration of public welfare and juristic discretion, using the principles of jurisprudence developed by the traditional legal schools.
The conversion of Malik el-Shabazz (better known as Malcolm X) in 1964 is widely regarded as the turning point for the spread of orthodox Sunni Islam among Black American Muslims. Encouraged to learn about Sunni Islam after his departure from the Nation of Islam, he converted; others from the Nation of Islam soon followed. Warith Deen Mohammed rose to leadership of the Nation of Islam in 1975 following the death of his father Elijah Muhammad and began the groundbreaking, though sometimes controversial, process of leading Black Muslims out of the NOI and into Sunni Islam. As a result of his personal thinking and studies of the Quran, he became part of Ahlus Sunnah during a term in federal prison from 1961 to 1963 for refusing induction into the United States military.
Mohammed introduced many reforms and began an information campaign about Sunni Islam much as el-Shabazz had years earlier. He stated that Fard was not divine and that his father was not a prophet. All of the over 400 temples were converted into traditional Islamic mosques, and he introduced the Five Pillars of Islam to his followers. He rejected literal interpretations of his father's theology and Black-separatist views and on the basis of his intensive independent study of Islamic law, history, and theology, he accepted whites as fellow worshipers. However, he also encouraged African Americans to separate themselves from their pasts, in 1976 calling upon them to change their surnames which were often given to their ancestors by slave masters. He forged closer ties with mainstream Muslim communities, including Hispanic and Latino American Muslims. By 1978 he had succeeded in leading the majority of the original NOI to Sunni Islam which still stands as the largest mass conversion to Islam in the United States. In many urban areas of the United States today many Black Muslims in the Sunni tradition are known and recognized by the hijabs on women and kufi caps and long beards for men. These beards are grown as an adherence to the Sunnah of Muhammad for men to let their beards grow. Commonly called Sunnah beards, and Sunni Beards, among Muslims and more recently known as Philly beards have also gained popularity among non-Muslim men emulating the Muslim style.
Shia Islam During the Muslim movement in the United States during the 20th century, the African American community was also introduced to Shia Islam. The majority of African Americans at that time were not aware of the Sunni-Shia divide, although most became Sunni due to how it was more widespread, a lack of access to Shia learning materials, and the stigma associated with Shia Islam. The 1979 Iranian Revolution gave Shia Muslims a voice within the Muslim community. This was the time when African Americans were first exposed to Shia Islam, and by 1982, more than one thousand African Americans had accepted Shia Islam in Philadelphia alone. Many Salafi and Wahhabi preachers were unhappy about the growth of Shia Islam, and began telling African American Muslims that it was disbelief, which alienated African American Shias from their community. African American Sunnis, encouraged by Sunni extremist missionaries, often attacked African American Shias in prisons.Kathleen Moore, "Muslims in Prison: Claims to Constitutional Protection of Religious Liberty," in Yvonne Haddad, ed., The Muslims of America, p. 141.
A popular African American Shia preacher is Amir Hakeem, who joined the Nation of Islam in prison and later converted to Shia Islam before being released. Hakeem became an assistant at a mosque in Watts and hosts charity work as well as teaches gang members in Los Angeles about Shia Islam. He stated that the Shia community of Watts is predominantly African Americans.
Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, also converted to Shia Islam and had died as a Shia Muslim.
Moorish Science Temple of America