On September 11th, 2008, while countless American flags whipped in the wind and the television and radio waves were dominated by remembrances, recordings, and stories about the terror attacks of seven years ago, I attended the funeral of Imam W.D. Mohammed (may God be pleased with him). For me, it was a somber day, but I found myself mostly lost in thought: about African-American Muslim communities, about the challenges ahead in American Muslim institution-building, and about the future of Islam in America. If you don't know who Imam WDM was, you should look him up. The Sufis say: "The true sage belongs to his era." And of the many gifts given to Imam WDM by God, perhaps the most obvious and beneficial one was the Imam's profound understanding of the principles of religion, and his adeptness at intelligently applying those Islamic principles in a socially and culturally appropriate manner befitting the everyday lives of his North American followers. While carefully respecting sound, traditional jurisprudential methodologies of the Islamic religion, and the collective religious history and time-honored scholarship of classical Islam, he promulgated creative ideas and dynamic teachings across many domains of human endeavor, including theology, law, spirituality and even ethics and aesthetics, that together articulated a vision for a quintessentially "American Muslim" cultural identity. And he did all of this before anyone else, with quiet strength and unending humility—a true sage indeed.

So I stood before his final resting place, brokenhearted. And I suddenly began to feel the weight of the moment, realizing that when God takes back one of his dearly beloved friends, those who are left behind should cry not for the deceased, but rather for themselves. For the fact that they are now without one of God's friends in their midst, and, in a sense, they are orphaned. And the tears began to well up, for I became acutely aware that I was standing in front of the grave of my spiritual grandfather, who was himself a spiritual descendant of Bilal al-Habashi (may God be pleased with him), the mighty and beloved companion of the Prophet himself. Bilal was the first Black African to convert to al-Islam at the hands of the Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and keep him) in the sands of Arabia nearly a thousand and a half years ago. Undoubtedly, some measure of that love, mercy, compassion, and spiritual stature that inhabited the heart of Bilal has found its way down through the ages, and I found myself begging God to transfer to my own heart some glimpse of these realities now laying before me.

Almost five years ago, my business partner, Preacher Moss (who is a member of the WDM community) founded the standup comedy tour "Allah Made Me Funny," and he invited me to be his co-founder. Needless to say, it has been nothing less than an honor to work with him on the project. But to many, it was an unusual pairing: a Black comic and an Indian comic? Both Muslims? Working together? And before we ever even announced our partnership publicly, we met privately and swore an allegiance to one another—a blood oath of sorts—which was this: No matter what happens, in good times and in bad, we have to be the brothers no one expects us to be. And built on this promise (and premise), we brought on our first collaborator, Brother Azeem (who is a member of Minister Farrakhan's NOI), with whom we toured for over two years (2004-2006) before parting ways amicably. Then we brought Mohammed Amer onto the team in the fall of 2006 (a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian refugee who grew up in a Sunni Muslim family in Houston, Texas). Mo, Preach, and I are still going strong together, and we are grateful for the unqualified support, love, and blessings that Imam WDM and the entire community have always given us.

But today, as I observed the funeral proceedings, I felt sad and heavy-hearted. Something wasn't sitting right. Something was physically paining my heart, and it felt like remorse, shame perhaps, maybe even guilt. I began to realize that the tears flowing from my eyes were as much a function of these feelings as they were any lofty spiritual aspirations of mine.

You see, I attended an interfaith event a couple of years ago on 9/11. A group had assembled to commemorate the tragic event, to honor those who perished that day, and to pledge ongoing inter-community support and bridge-building to fight ignorance, hate, and intolerance. At that event, there was this short, middle-aged, sweet, extremely kindhearted, White Christian woman. When she took the microphone to speak, she was already teary-eyed, and I assumed that she was going to make some comments about the victims of 9/11, as so many others already had that night.

But she didn't do that. Instead, she explained that she had become utterly grief-stricken by the constant barrage of news stories she witnessed about Muslims and Arabs being harassed, profiled, and mistreated after 9/11. She explained that she felt powerless to do anything about it, and that it made her sick to her stomach to hear of hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs, and especially to hear of Christian preachers denigrating Islam and its Prophet. She started to cry, and so did many others in the room, humbled by the magnanimity of this simple woman.

And then she did what I thought was a strange thing: she apologized. She prefaced her apology with all the logical disclaimers, such as "I know this may mean nothing to you," and "I know that I am not the one who did these horrible things," and "I know that you may dismiss this as empty rhetoric until you see some follow-up action on my part, but anyway," she continued, "I want to apologize on behalf of all the Christians and all non-Muslims and non-Arabs who have been attacking your communities, harassing your people, and accusing your religion of all these horrible things. I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry." I was stunned. Speechless, in fact. Though all of her disclaimers were true, and my skeptical mind knew it, her apology melted our hearts. Here was this powerless servant of God sharing some of her most deeply felt emotional vulnerabilities, and she was apologizing to Muslims for something she didn't even do? Jesus (may God bless him and keep him) once famously remarked: "Make the world your teacher," and so I immediately took this woman as a lesson in humility. Admitting her powerlessness made her incredibly powerful.

And this brings me to the point (and title) of this essay. I would like to unburden myself of something that has been sitting like a ton of bricks on my heart for my entire life. I want to apologize to my Blackamerican brothers and sisters in Islam. I know that this apology may not mean very much; and I know that our American Muslim communities have a LONG way to go before we can have truly healthy political conciliation and de-racialized religious cooperation; and I know that I am not the one who is responsible for so much of the historical wrongdoing of so-called "immigrant Muslims"—wrongdoings that have been so hurtful, and insulting, and degrading, and disrespectful, and dismissive, and marginalizing, and often downright dehumanizing.

But anyway, for every "Tablighi" brother who may have had "good intentions" in his own subjective mind, but behaved in an utterly insensitive and outrageous manner toward you when he suggested that you need to learn how to urinate correctly, I'm sorry.

And for every Pakistani doctor who can find money in his budget to drive a Lexus and live in a million-dollar house in suburbia, and who has the audacity to give Friday sermons about the virtues of "Brotherhood in Islam," while the "Black mosque" can't pay the heating bills or provide enough money to feed starving Muslim families just twenty miles away, I'm sorry.

And for every Arab speaker in America who makes it his business to raise millions and millions of dollars to provide "relief" for Muslim refugees around the world, but turns a blind eye to the plight of our very own Muslim sisters and brothers right here in our American inner cities just because, in his mind, the color black might as well be considered invisible, I'm sorry.

And for every liquor store in the "hood" with a plaque that says Maashaa' Allah hanging on the wall behind the counter, I'm sorry.

And for every news media item or Hollywood portrayal that constantly reinforces the notion that "Muslim=foreigner" so that the consciousness of Blackamerican Muslims begins even to doubt itself (asking "Can I ever be Muslim enough?"), I'm sorry.

And for every Salafi Muslim brother (even the ones who used to be Black themselves before converting to Arab) who has rattled off a hadith or a verse from Koran in Arabic as his "daleel" to Kafirize you and make you feel defensive about even claiming this deen as your own, I'm sorry.

And for every time you've been asked "So when did you convert to Islam?" even though that question should more properly have been put to your grandparents, since they became Muslims by the grace of God Almighty back in the 1950s, and raised your parents as believers, and Islam is now as much your own inheritance as it is the one's posing that presumptuous, condescending question, I'm sorry.

And for every time some Muslim has self-righteously told you that your hijab is not quite "Shariah" enough, or your beard is not quite "Sunnah" enough, or your outfit is not quite "Islamic" enough, or your Koranic recitation is not quite "Arabic" enough, or your family customs are not quite "traditional" enough, or your worldview is not quite "classical" enough, or your ideas are not "authentic" enough, or your manner of making wudu is not quite "Hanafi," "Shafi," "Maliki," or "Hanbali" enough, or your religious services are not quite "Masjid" enough, or your chicken is not quite "Halal" enough, I'm sorry.

And for every Labor Day weekend when you've felt divided in your heart, wondering "When will we ever do this thing right and figure out how we can pool our collective resources to have ONE, big convention?," I'm sorry.

And for every time a Muslim has tried to bait you with a question about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, trying to force you to condemn him—turning it into some sort of binary litmus test of true iman—with reckless and irresponsible disregard for the historical fact that he was among the first Black men in America to ever do anything meaningful for the upliftment and betterment of Black people, I'm sorry.

And for every time you've heard of an African-American brother who tried to bring home a South Asian or Arab sister to meet his parents, only to learn that her parents would rather commit suicide than let their daughter marry a "Black Muslim" (a/k/a "Bilalian brother"), even as they cheer hypocritically at stadium style speeches by Imams Siraj Wahhaj, Zaid Shakir, Johari Abdul Malik, or others—or get in line to bring one of them to speak at their multi-million dollar fundraiser for yet another superfluous suburban mosque, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I want every African-American Muslim brother and sister to know that I am ashamed of this treatment that you have received and, in many cases, continue to receive, over the decades. I want you to know that I am aware of it. I am conscious of the problem. (Indeed, I am even conscious that I myself am part of the problem since curing hypocrisy begins by looking in the mirror.) I am not alone in this apology. There are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of young American Muslims just like me, born to immigrant parents who originate from all over the Muslim world. We get it, and we too are sick of the putrid stench of racism within our own Muslim communities. Let us pledge to work on this problem together, honestly validating our own and one another's insecurities, emotions, and feelings regarding these realities. Forgiveness is needed to right past wrongs, yet forgiveness is predicated on acknowledging wrongdoing and sincerely apologizing. Let us make a blood oath of sorts.

When the bulldozer came to place the final mounds of dirt over the tomb of Imam WDM, I was standing under a nearby tree, under the light drizzle that had just begun (perhaps as a sign of mercy dropping from the heavens as the final moments of the burial were drawing to a close), and I was talking to a dear friend and sister in faith, whose family has been closely aligned with Imam WDM for decades. She shared with me a story that her father had just related to her about the passing of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975 (the same year I was born, incidentally). She told me that her father described the scene in the immediate aftermath of Elijah's demise: utter confusion and chaos within the NOI and the communities surrounding it. There was much debate and discord about what direction the NOI would take, and many were still in shock and denial that the founder had actually died. Out of the midst of that confusion arose Imam WDM, and along with his strong leadership came an even more, perhaps surprisingly courageous direction: the path away from the Black nationalism, pan-Africanism, and proto-religious beliefs of his father, and instead the unequivocal charge toward mainstream Islam, the same universal and cosmopolitan faith held and practiced by over a billion adherents worldwide. In this manner, her father explained, the death of Elijah Muhammad became a definitive end to a chapter in our collective history, and the resulting re-direction by Imam WDM marked the beginning of the next, far better, chapter in that unfolding history.

Maybe I am just an idealistic fool, or maybe Pharaoh Sanders was right about the Creator's Master Plan, but I sincerely believe that all we have to do—all of us together: Black folks, South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis), Arabs from every part of the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asians (Indonesians and Malaysians), Persians, Turks, Latinos, assorted Muslims of all stripes, colors, and backgrounds, and yes, even our White Muslim brothers and sisters—is live up to a simple promise to one another: No matter what happens, in good times and in bad, we have to be the brothers and sisters no one expects us to be.

It is hoped that the passing of Imam WDM will also mark the end of a chapter in our collective American Muslim history, and perhaps now, in earnest, we can all look together toward The Third Resurrection.

May God mend our broken hearts, lift our spirits, purify our souls, heal the rifts between our communities, unify our aims, remove our obstacles, defeat our enemies, and bless and accept our humble offerings and service.

SubhanAllah. May Allah grant us the Compassion, Mercy and Wisdom to know each others as Sisters and Brothers.

A very moving and honest declaration. May Allah bless you, for knowing what to say and how to say it, and above all having the courage to say it too.

Amen, Brother Azhar.

Jazak'Allah for this article. As a Muslim and an African American I found myself nodding while reading this article. I was born Muslim yet I always get the questions about how long have I been Muslim or get the silent treatment when I attend events hosted by South Asian masjids.

We need to get out of our boxes and remember we are all Muslims. Thanks for writing this article, perhaps it can begin a dialogue? I am ready to get that started!

As salaam alaikum,

As an African-American this means so much to me.

Ameen.

Thank you so much for this article, its about time this issue is seriously addressed, and it is equally important that members of the immigrant community be the first to stand up to the despicable racism of our elders.

as-salaam alaikum

While I agree with the basic tenor and the noble sentiments of brother Azhar I think there are some issues with the article, which havent been raised.

"And for every Pakistani doctor who can find money in his budget to drive a Lexus and live in a million-dollar house in suburbia, and who has the audacity to give Friday sermons about the virtues of "Brotherhood in Islam," while the "Black mosque" can't pay the heating bills or provide enough money to feed starving Muslim families just twenty miles away, I'm sorry.

And for every Arab speaker in America who makes it his business to raise millions and millions of dollars to provide "relief" for Muslim refugees around the world, but turns a blind eye to the plight of our very own Muslim sisters and brothers right here in our American inner cities just because, in his mind, the color black might as well be considered invisible, I'm sorry."

Its really not fair to put 'relief' in quotation marks. Whatever the nees of American/Western Muslims of whatever colour you cannot compare it to the needs of Muslims in the third world (including Africa) who really ARE starving and dying.


"And for every news media item or Hollywood portrayal that constantly reinforces the notion that "Muslim=foreigner" so that the consciousness of Blackamerican Muslims begins even to doubt itself (asking "Can I ever be Muslim enough?"), I'm sorry."

But this is hardly something Azhar or the Muslim immigrant community can be held responsible for. Holding people responsible for something they had nothing to do and no control over with isnt an islamic belief but a Christian one.


"And for every Salafi Muslim brother (even the ones who used to be Black themselves before converting to Arab) who has rattled off a hadith or a verse from Koran in Arabic as his "daleel" to Kafirize you and make you feel defensive about even claiming this deen as your own, I'm sorry."

SubhanAllah - so in fighting against racism against African Americans we indulge in racism against Arabs? mashAllah what progress! Arabic is the language of Islam and of all Muslims and its use by *some* to boast over other Muslims isnt restricted to any race. For example, it can and has been used by African Americans to boast over non-African Americans. Someone who knows the deen knows that knowing Arabic is far from sufficient criteria to be giving fatwa.

"And for every time some Muslim has self-righteously told you that your hijab is not quite "Shariah" enough, or your beard is not quite "Sunnah" enough, or your outfit is not quite "Islamic" enough, or your Koranic recitation is not quite "Arabic" enough, or your family customs are not quite "traditional" enough, or your worldview is not quite "classical" enough, or your ideas are not "authentic" enough, or your manner of making wudu is not quite "Hanafi," "Shafi," "Maliki," or "Hanbali" enough, or your religious services are not quite "Masjid" enough, or your chicken is not quite "Halal" enough, I'm sorry."

This again has nothing to do with race. So why make it a racial issue?
One can find African American brothers of the Salafi sect decrying other Muslims as mushriks , mubtadi and jahil. Should one demand all African American Muslims apologise? Absurd

And the Faraid of Islam are upon every Muslim regardless of race. Should we say "oh its ok brother he can do that haram he's African American". And its strange to condemn speaking against AA Muslim customs which may be un-Islamic while rightly condeming Arab and Asian ones that are.(to be continued)

(continued)

"And for every time a Muslim has tried to bait you with a question about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, trying to force you to condemn him—turning it into some sort of binary litmus test of true iman—with reckless and irresponsible disregard for the historical fact that he was among the first Black men in America to ever do anything meaningful for the upliftment and betterment of Black people, I'm sorry."

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad? SubhanAllah - Elijah Poole was a dajjal and a shaytan who claimed to be a Prophet after Muhammed (sallAllahu alayhi wasalaam) as well as being a mushrik who believed Allah (swt) was a man (audhobillah) all the while passing off this kufr as "Islam". How can you not condemn someone who claimed to be a Prophet of God after the Prophet (sallAllahu alayhi wasalaam) - its like saying "how dare you expect an Arab to condemn Musaylima or a Indian/Pakistani Mirza Ghulam Ahmed or an Iranian BahiAllah" !
At the least the aforementioned dajjals werent Nazi racist scum like Elijah Poole who believe some races are superior

We want the Islam of Malcolm X who believed all races equal - not the "Islam" (sic) -sunnah of Iblis -Elijah Poole that some are better than others!!

It seems to me racist to do this -its like holding some Muslims to a lower standard because they are African American.

And on what basis is asking about him "baiting"? Someone who believes he was a prophet isnt a Muslim. Its hardly exclusive to the AA community - ask any Turkish Muslim how many questions theyve been asked about Ataturk!

"And for every time you've heard of an African-American brother who tried to bring home a South Asian or Arab sister to meet his parents, only to learn that her parents would rather commit suicide than let their daughter marry a "Black Muslim" (a/k/a "Bilalian brother"), even as they cheer hypocritically at stadium style speeches by Imams Siraj Wahhaj, Zaid Shakir, Johari Abdul Malik, or others—or get in line to bring one of them to speak at their multi-million dollar fundraiser for yet another superfluous suburban mosque, I'm sorry."

Indeed. Absolutely evil and despicable. Would anyone describe such behavious as Honorable? Yet the "Honorable" Elijah Poole believed race mixing to be evil and a grave sin (audhoillah) as well as believing white Muslims to be the devils on account of their color.
Makes the South Asian/Arab parents look upholders of the sunnah in comparison.

And sorry to break it to you-those AA Muslim parents (perhaps still having the residue of NOI evil ideas on race) who wont have their daughter marrying other than a black man are just as evil.

We Muslims have to get beyond race. We are Muslim first second and third. There is no more room for people seperating and defining themselves as African American Muslim than Pakistani or Arab Muslim.

To argue this is OK for AA but not others is again racism -the racism of low expectation-implying that AA are unable to transcend their ethnicity as all Muslims should and should be treated with lower expectations. The ironic thing is that AA have been victims of this for a long time- the African American NOI is treated with kid gloves, invited to speak at Islamic conferences etc, compared to the Pakistani Qadianis, an anethema, whose believes are far closer to Islam than the NOI (the Qadianis arent Muslims; but they also arent mushriks like the NOI)

Obviously there are reasons of dawa and hikmah in this but in Islam all races are equal and we cannot feel guilty for Christian history (which is based on institutional racism against black people as in the slave trade) and pretend Islamic history is the same (it isnt - we have had many black Muslim rulers over non-black Muslims, never had discriminatory laws based on colour and slavery in Islam as bad as it was was never racial). This I think is the problem - buying into and absorbing the narrative of American (Christian) history and slavery when it isnt Islamic history and is alien to it.

>> SubhanAllah - so in fighting against racism against African Americans we indulge in racism against Arabs? mashAllah what progress! Arabic is the language of Islam and of all Muslims and its use by *some* to boast over other Muslims isnt restricted to any race. For example, it can and has been used by African Americans to boast over non-African Americans. Someone who knows the deen knows that knowing Arabic is far from sufficient criteria to be giving fatwa.

I can only say that this is a typical comment. Lack of respect for any other knowledge/culture means you will never ever benefit from any other knowledge/culture either. Deferring blame for our own flaws and refusing to understand the roots of our internal problems for what they are. Guess what.. your beliefs do not and have not and will not ever uproot the problems because these are the same empty rhetoric of "Brotherhood on my terms", "Unity my way", "Ahles Sunnah of my Shaykh", "Mutual respect in my custom". You toss around the word "beliefs" like Americans toss around that amazing constitution of theirs.

There is no "hikmah" in denying the problem exists, and no sense in pretending that aqidah will heal rifts in the Ummah. You are not just not progressive, you will never see that the Prophet SAW taught and established a progressive philosophy that was meant to take the world forward and not plant its feet steadily in its own limited view (calling it the straight path). You are mired in the false pretence that your understanding of the texts need not be challenged by the realities of how it works and the way it impacts others. You will not test your ideas as old and broken as they are. You are off the mark. It is our history that needs to be checked, evaluated and understood. It is our agressive regressiveness in word, ethics (a non-existant word in some peoples dictionaries), deed and impact that must be reviewed openly and in all its magic destructiveness.

Point ~ Elijah Muhammad may have committed every crime this side of the equator, but he has done more for the dignity of the oppressed than anyone who holds to your philosophy in the past half century. And don't be mistaken. I and the millions of others like me do not consider your approach the Islamic response. I consider the honesty, frankness, humility (to walk in the footsteps of a Christian women knowing its the better route to take and not grudging her for it) of Azhar to be the Islamic route and I respect his honesty ... intellectually, in character, in principle and in Imaan too. Your views will go challenged everystep of its clumsy and disingenuous way.

Well said. Food for thought.

>> I and the millions of others like me do not consider your approach the Islamic response.<<

He he he he. Nothing personal, but there are "no millions like you." What an egomaniac! There are only a handful like you, and they are all on this web-site. "Millions like me," ha ha ha h hahaah. God forbid.

>> He he he he. Nothing personal, but there are "no millions like you." What an egomaniac!

What was I referring to? There can easily be millions of people like me. But what do we have in common exactly?

Bismillah alRahman alRahim,

It pleases me greatly to read this. As a Muslim of African-American descent the behavior of many Muslims has always been disheartening. I've watched young Black Muslims enter the local masjid (attended mostly by Egyptians) and be asked rudely "why are you here?". Sadly they were driven deaf by fear, confusion, or some mix of emotions and could not hear the young brothers saying salam. I myself have given salams and not had it returned so frequently that I'm surprised when it happens.

I see among the comments those who feel that the writer's statements were misconstrued and out of context. I would remind such people to research the history of Islam in Africa. It's quite amazing and in it is a lesson for our current reality. Aside from Ethiopia's protection of the first Muslims (interesting enough the Prophet would seek refuge in Africa for his oppressed just as Isa, Musa, and Ibrahim before him; Allah be pleased with them all), Islam spread quite rapidly in Africa primarily through trade and intellectual exchange; not to mention a significant African merchant population already living in southern Iraq and Persia.

The most powerful Muslim states of the Middle Ages would arise from African populations; most notable among them the empires of Mali and Songhai. It's estimated that Mali alone was the source of 75% of all the gold of that age. In other words, that single state stabilized economies from North Europe to Persia. This mantle would then be passed to Songhai.

But greed would soon overpower reason. Muslim states such as Morocco and Oman coveted the economic centers of Mali and Swahili lands. Aggression would flare as Arab Muslims would go so far as to invade African Muslim states. They would prove no match for their military power so inevitably partnered with unlikely allies. The Sultan of Oman allied with Portugal and Morocco with England and using newly developed firepower they decimated these old kingdoms. The conquest of Swahili land was particularly gruesome and the Portuguese would cut off hands and fingers of women to steal their gold jewelry. Soon the sultan of Oman would establish his base in old Swahili cities and begin a 300 year reign of terror in what is now Zanzibar. Meanwhile Morocco, with the use of Christians from Spain and firearms from England, would destroy Songhai power and leave a vacuum in the region.

With the decline of these two corner stone societies, African quickly fell prey to aggressive slave trading, Europeans from the West and Arabs from the east. And these Muslim rulers justified such actions because the view of the time was that African were barely human and their practice of Islam was far from adequate, despite one of the highest centers of Islamic scholarship existing in Mali. The first people the Sultan of Morocco enslaved after the conquest were African Muslim scholars such as Ahmed Baba.

Despite knowing this history I am still Muslim, because I know that Islam was not the cause for such behavior. But I and and any other African Muslim would be in gross error were we to ignore the bigotry of the past and to where it has lead.

I pray we all reach greater understanding and overcome this device that has been used to rule us all.

I write this in remembrance of my ancestors who fasted even while toiling slavishly from "sun up to sun down", who concealed their prayers from their masters, who fought and lead revolts when others were fearful, and were slave only to Allah.

Thanks Brother, there is more of the Islam that attracted me in your self critical analysis than I've seen in a long time.
I split my 5 years in Chicago between the large MCC Asian run/ Magreb attended mosque, and the South Side one block from Louis Farrakhan's home- and the bulk of my lady friends were african american, and they were always taking me to see WD and, even though I was often a lone white face in the audience- people went out of their way to be EXTRA friendly to me and make me feel TOO welcome-
(Once I attended Eid prayers at a Nigerian Mosque, and the Imam stared at me and said how pleased he was at the diversity of the crowd- 500 necks swiveled to see where it was, I did too until I realized it was me- he he he)
I have seen alot of the problems and attitudes you describe- alot- and have raised the same question- how can we ignore the mosque whose needs we can clearly see?

I don't believe I've ever heard such an honest heart searching expression from a brother addressing an "other".
One thing about America, it really forces one to get along with others.
I am missing my sisters since I moved to NY.

“ . . .the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity . . .” (excerpt from The Soul’s of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois).

As an African US American I truly appreciate your words. It is difficult to build a strong, unified, and spiritually sound community, when there is such a denial of the profound impact of racism. We really need to engage is some intense dialogue without all the pc frills if we expect to get to a genuinely productive place. Racism in the Muslim community hurts my feelings, but it is understood among many African US American’s, that we will not be accepted or liked in certain ways due to our ethnicity/nationality. Understanding the specific ways people do not like you is a product of being hated. Thank you for recognizing my experience.

While I agree with Br. Azhar's sentiments and I am disgusted with the continuing racism that plagues the Muslim community, one thing this article leaves out is how today's generation of American Muslims, those born and raised here and the children of the much maligned immigrants in this piece, are contributing to the problem.

First, how many of these Muslims can honestly count African-American Muslims among their close friends? If you look at most cities' Muslim social cliques, they remain largely homogeneous. And while some children of South Asian and Arab immigrants have started socializing with each other, and maybe even marrying each other, this circle of socialization remains closed, intentionally or not, to most young African-American Muslims of the same age, most of whom have also been born and raised Muslim.

Next, how many of today's twenty- and thirtysomething American Muslim children of immigrants live in racially integrated neighborhoods? For a generation that largely attended public schools where heavy emphasis has been placed on incorporating African-American students and their culture, voice and perspectives into educational curricula for the last three decades, most of these second-generation American Muslims, particularly those professionally educated and in the higher income brackets, follow the same patterns their parents did: striving to live in the lily white suburbs of their cities. An openness to African-Americans in school, whether as peers, teachers or in classroom curricula, has not translated into an actual desire to do more than keep African-Americans at an arm's length, and definitely not in the same neighborhood.

Whatever their excuses, the fact of the matter is, the pattern of racism continues with today's generation of American Muslim children of immigrants. But this time, it's not practiced in the ways outlined by Br. Azhar's article. Rather, the plague of racism is today inadvertent and practiced in the way of the middle- and upper-classes: through quiet exclusion.

As the Prophet's blessed example teaches us, it is only by opening ourselves up to each other through systems like praying on a regular basis with Muslims of varying backgrounds (we can aim for Juma at least), and instilling a system like the Muakhkha system, in which every Ansari Muslim became the brother of a Mujahir Muslim, caring for their needs, can we truly break barriers. It is not by keeping each other segregated, whether that is in who we socialize with, which Islamic events we attend or even which Eid prayer our family goes to. Muslims born and raised in America must make more of a concerted effort to attend mosques and regular prayers and activities with Muslims of varying backgrounds. It's time we walked the walk.

We must also, as much as possible, seek to live in neighborhoods which reflect the diversity of America, and more importantly, the Ummah.

If we continue to live in our comfort zones, there is no way tomorrow's generation of Muslims will be cured of the cancer of racism that is killing our community, taking us back to the age of Jahiliyya instead of moving us forward into the light of Islam.