Dr. Sherman Jackson A History of Black Islam in America
By Abdal Hakim Jackson | 2026-01-13T19:08:39.897013+00:00 | Topic: Muslim Identity
A History of Black Islam in America
Lecture by Dr. Sherman Jackson
King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture
Professor of Religion in American Studies and Ethnicity
University of Southern California
Presented at the Claremont Colleges
Opening Remarks by Adil Zaid, Muslim Chaplain
My name is Adil Zaid and I serve as the Muslim Chaplain here at the Claremont Colleges, Alhamdulillah. And welcome to the Claremont Colleges, welcome to our community, yes, welcome to our students, our faculty, and our staff as well. We hope to have more events open to the community because we are all one community here in Southern California.
Thank you to our sponsors, the Office of Black Student Affairs, Pomona College, and Claremont McKenna College. Thank you to the Macalester staff, the MSA of the Claremont Colleges, our board, our new Muslim Life Fellows, Sundas from the Claremont School of Theology, and a special shout out to Farouk, the MSA Vice President, for his tireless efforts for this event. Thank you so much.
The topic today of History of Black Islam in America is a prudent one. African Americans have worked and given their lives so we can enjoy civil rights that we have today. As a son of immigrants who benefit from that privilege, I feel compelled to apologize in many ways for the lack of acknowledgment towards the African American contributions, and specifically the African American Muslim community, for what they have done for us, planting the seeds of Islam in America, and building that Islamic infrastructure, and a creation of the honor of Islam.
And then when international Muslims came in to America, they moved out of the city, into suburbs, forgetting about all the good that was done, and built their own mosques, organizations, and didn't act as honor. We all speak out against injustice in our society, killing of innocent black men, the war on drugs that target people of color, mass incarcerations, subjugating women of color, and so forth. And perhaps hard to swallow for many is the racism that we have inside the Muslim community.
When it comes to marriage, or inviting African American speakers for comedy or for fundraising, but not as keynote speakers. Something that I have written about in Huffington Post, and I encourage others to speak out on it as well. Switching gears, I'd like to introduce our MSA presidents, Adila and Bisma, who will subsequently introduce our senior speaker for tonight, Dr. Sherman Jackson.
Introduction of Dr. Sherman Jackson
Dr. Sherman Jackson is the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture, and Professor of Religion in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He was formerly the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Visiting Professor of Law, and Professor of African American Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dr. Jackson received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, Wayne State University, and the University of Michigan.
From 1987 to 1989, he served as Executive Director of the Center of Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo, Egypt. He is the author of several books, including Islamic Law and the State, The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shehazadeen Al-Gharfi, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali's Faisal of Africa, Islam and the Black American, Looking Toward the Third Resurrection, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering, and most recently, Sufism for Non-Sufis.
Additionally, Dr. Jackson is a co-founder, core scholar, and member of the Board of Trustees of the American Learning Institute for Muslims, which is an academic institution where scholars, professionals, activists, artists, writers, and community leaders come together to develop strategies for the future of Islam in the modern world. He is also a former member of the Fifth Council of North America, former president of the Shari'a Scholars Association of North America, and also past trustee of the North American Islamic Trust.
He has contributed to several publications, including the Washington Post Newsweek blog, On State, and the Huffington Post. Dr. Jackson is listed by the Religion Newsletter Foundation's Rosenblink as among the top ten experts on Islam in the United States. However, as one of the current college's co-presidents of the MSA, I think I was obviously listed as number one.
Moving on, he was also named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by their role as one of the strategy studies centering among children, and the Prince Al-Walid Bin Tabal Center for American Christian Understanding. Thank you everyone again for coming, and please welcome Dr. Sherman Jackson.
Lecture by Dr. Sherman Jackson
Opening Acknowledgments
First of all, thank you very much for that overly gracious and generous introduction.
I almost began to feel so superfluous after the introduction that Adil made. And I was thinking about just carrying on with my lecture and going with what was left after that. But let me say this much.
I think that I teach, among the courses that I teach on the undergraduate level, is Introduction to Islam. And I've taught that course for several years, beginning way back at the University of Texas,
back in the last century. And I've taught it ever since up until the present.
And oftentimes I tell my students that I teach this course sort of as a chapter in American civics. I think that the topic of Islam in the world today is one that we as those Americans who will inform and make up the future of America cannot be ignorant of. We cannot afford to be ignorant of this topic.
And in order for us, therefore, to be sort of responsible Americans, we have to know something about Islam and the Muslims that are in our midst. And I think that a key part of that is understanding the history of how this phenomenon comes into being in American space. My presentation, however, is going to be more historical with a particular inflection.
We will get to some of the controversies that exist within the Muslim community further on. But I think it's important for us to be able to put all of this in some kind of context. So let me begin by saying the following.
Approaches to Writing History
When we talk about doing history, history can be approached from a myriad of angles. And there are two basic criteria on the basis of which we can sort of judge how successfully a history has been written or narrated. The first is the degree to which a particular historian is successful at achieving what he or she sets out to achieve.
In other words, that historian takes a specific issue within a historical context and he or she seeks to speak to that specific issue. The other criterion is comprehensiveness, that is, how comprehensive a historian is. That is to say, the extent to which he or she covers all the personalities, all the dates, all the places, all the movements, all the institutions, all the events that have something to do with a particular historical topic as a general historical topic.
Now I think that probably owing something to our Enlightenment heritage, especially as sort of products of the modern Western academy, the tendency is probably to incline toward comprehensiveness as the basic criterion for how well a history is done. And that has its advantages, but I think it also has some disadvantages. I personally am just a little bit leery of comprehensiveness as a criterion for assessing histories because when we talk about being comprehensive, there's a liability that the role and perspective of minority groups will be overshadowed by those of the majority.
The majority will just emerge with bigger voices, bigger roles, bigger legacies, and the minority can sort of be washed out or marginalized. In that context, my approach to the history of Islam in black America is not and has never been one that seeks to be comprehensive. I wrote a whole book entitled Islam and the Black American, and by the way, some of you will see a critique of that book based on the extent to which it is comprehensive or not.
And let me say here that that critique from a certain perspective is a legitimate critique. From another perspective, it's sort of superfluous in that it holds the book to a criterion that the book itself did not
seek to satisfy. So my criterion is not comprehensiveness.
I am not primarily interested in names and dates and places and all those kinds of things. My basic point of departure is grounded in the following. When we consider a number of uncontested facts about Islam in black America, we come up with a number of interesting facts.
The Uniqueness of American Islam
Number one, America is the only major western democracy that can boast a major contingent of Muslims who emerged out of the soil of America as native-born Americans. Now this might not mean a lot to many of us, but if we look at virtually the entire rest of the world, if we go to Europe for example, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in a place like England come from the subcontinent. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in France come from north and sub-Saharan Africa.
In Germany, they come from Turkey. This is not to say that there aren't smatterings of native-born indigenous Muslims, but they are a minority and something of an anomaly. But when we come to America, America is the first major western democracy that produces a large contingent of native-born indigenous Americans.
And that contingent is the black American community. Now, traditionally, you know this is the first time I've drunk water out of a straw as a speaker. This is going to be interesting.
Now, as a part of our general imagination, given what we tend to know and or assume about the black American community, there's a tendency to assume that this phenomenon, that is of the transgenerational existence of Islam among black Americans, has something to do with the legacy of slavery. And this is not an outrageous assumption. We know for a fact, we have material evidence to the effect that a percentage of the slave population brought to America from Africa were Muslims.
And this is not just a statistical assumption. We have actual Arabic manuscripts written by African Muslims, by African Muslims, enslaved in America, in North America. Not South America, North America.
We have those as artifacts. So we know that they were here. And we can name any number of them.
But that assumption runs into a particular problem. When we consider the fact that something on the order of ten times the number of Africans enslaved and brought to North America, that which became the United States of America, went to Brazil alone. Ten times.
And yet, we don't see anything that even approaches the phenomenon that we recognize as Islam in black America, in Brazil, or anyplace else in the new world. Right? Therefore, if slavery, or the legacy of slavery, explains the emergence of Islam in the black American community, we would think that that phenomenon would be all the more present in places like Brazil and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, where Africans were brought as slaves. And yet, we find no such thing.
And so, this leads me to a particularly interesting conclusion. And that is that there is something uniquely American about the phenomenon of black American Islam. Something that cannot be simply explained by looking at what goes on in Africa or what goes on in any other part of the world.
There is something uniquely American about this phenomenon of Islam in black America. And that is a point of departure for me in terms of a history of Islam in black America. Now, this is not at all to deny other factors that may have contributed to that phenomenon.
I'm not saying that it is exclusively American. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is that to successfully, and I think intelligently, understand the phenomenon of Islam in black America, the American element cannot be ruled out.
Now, let me say this much, and this is my own, and you know, I'm sorry, I can't do the straw thing. I think especially, and I'm not trying to be political here, I'm purely being as academic as I can. I mean, that's not the right word either.
Black Americans and American Identity
In the particular moment in which we happen to live, to talk about an American element in black American Islam almost sounds like a capitulation. Because the assumption is that blacks have never owned America. And never had ownership in America.
And therefore, any kind of American element would be assumed to have been imposed by the dominant culture from about. Right? That is not what I'm talking about. In fact, I don't subscribe to the idea that blacks have always been sort of resident aliens in America in the sense that they have established a unique culture, a unique identity, an inextricable Americanist to their identity that cannot be denied.
In fact, today, it might be fair to say, I hesitate when I say these kinds of things because they're over-inclusive. But we can't talk about anything without being, to some degree, over-inclusive. So, with that caveat having been made, let me say this.
We may be on safe ground to say today that there are primarily only two groups of Americans who are not typically asked, where are you from? And those two are whom? White people and black people. It's in that context that the ownership in America, that's actually what I'm talking about when I speak of this place of belongingness for which they cannot be alienated. So, when I talk about the American contribution, I'm not talking about something that is imposed entirely from within, but something that emerges out of the communal existence of blacks in America.
Now, this sort of basic framework places two key concepts at the center of my analysis. And the first of these is the concept of black religion. Black religion.
Black Religion as a Framework
Black religion is a concept that a number of scholars in the academy have isolated as a specifically
Shared Culture in the South
Far more than in the North. Does that sound strange? I remember when somebody said that I taught at the University of Texas. I remember going into the dean's office once and overhearing the secretary there.
This was a white woman who was very chic and very urbanian. And I heard her say, well, you might can't go. And I, you know, use double modals like that.
You might can't. That doesn't, well, it struck me as being somebody from the North. What I was shocked to find was that much of what I had assumed to be black English was not at all black English.
It was southern English. In fact, when I came to the University of Texas, I came to Texas from overseas. I had been living overseas studying for a number of years.
And when I came to the University of Texas, I still remember they put me up in one of these hotels. By the way, I mean, I had been away for a number of years. And I come back and this is the first time I saw one of those hotels, you know, with the fancy glass elevators, like in the middle of the floor.
Right. It's like, you know, they had telephones in the bathroom and things like that. You know, it was a really fancy hotel because they were trying to sort of wine and dine me.
You know, because they were trying to recruit me to the University of Texas. So anyway, I come down for breakfast on the morning that I go to the university to get my job talk. And we sit down at this very fancy hotel restaurant and we open up the menu.
And I sort of I'm taking a back look and I sort of turn to one of my colleagues. They're all white. And I say, what's this? Right.
And he sort of smiles at me and says, listen, I know what you're thinking. But no self-respecting restaurant in the entire South would be caught dead without this one. What do you think it was? Grits.
Grits. I know whites in the North and in the Midwest who didn't even know what grits were. All right.
So what I'm saying is that what you have in the South is a shared cultural legacy. And this is not the whitewash, the problems of racism in the South. But again, one of the sharpest dividing lines between black and white culture in the North is African language.
All right. How you speak. So what you have in the South is black religion, Christianity, and this sort of shared culture.
The Great Migration and Proto-Islamic Movements
On the eve of World War One, however, we began to get this massive exodus out of the South into the North. All right. And this was fueled by a number of things.
The end of slavery, the crucible of reconstruction. All right. And then World War One, which produced all kinds of job opportunities.
All right. Four blacks from the South coming to the North. Now, once this happens, to make a very long story short, you end up getting a certain dislocation in the relationship between black religion in the South and blacks who are coming to this new urban center in the North.
They're dislocated. There's an attempt to sort of try to adjust to this new Northern phenomenon. And you get black church leaders trying to readjust so that they can find ways of maintaining the relevance of Christianity as it had been practiced in the South in this new Northern metropolis.
And to make a long story short, some of this begins to break down. And black religion is released, in a sense, from the monopoly of Christianity. And to all intents and purposes, it's sort of out there floating around looking for a new home.
All right. This is the time period in which what I call the proto-Islamic movements attach themselves to black religion with a vocabulary and a set of institutions that are related to Islam. They still do not have a basic Islamic theology, or even an attachment to the fundamental institutions of Islam.
But they have a language and a basic sensibility, and most important, a sense of ownership over this new construct called Islam. And here, I think we have to look at a phenomenon that's also quite important in the black American community. Part of what black religion provides to black American communities is the ability to escape the powers of definition by the dominant culture.
Self-Definition and the Moorish Science Temple
By which I mean that the dominant culture, which controls all the educational systems, which controls the media, which controls Hollywood, which controls all of the institutions that can produce and disseminate ideas and images. Under those circumstances, you can be defined according to the way that the dominant culture wants to define you. Right? And this may explain a phenomenon that I think we find uniquely in the black American community.
This is a community that's gone through how many names? Right? Negro. Black. Colored.
African American. Afro-American. At one point on the East Coast, Big Alien.
Alright? Black American. Moorish. Alright? I mean, in a sense, these are attempts to break the monopoly of the dominant culture over the definition of blacks.
Alright? So if you come outside the realm of the control of the dominant white community, you can end yourself, you can find yourself in a position where you are able to self-define. To self-define. When we look at the early proto-Islamic movements, we find an explicit attempt to self-define.
Alright? Notice the name of the first, I shouldn't say first, but the first really important phenomenon among the proto-Islamic movements. It is called the Moorish Science Temple. Alright? Now, this name is not accidental.
Okay? On the one hand, it is called Moorish. What is that all about? Okay? Not just Morocco. It is, again, it is an escape from that.
Alright? In other words, the dominant culture in America, if you call it black, they can still what? Define it. If you call it Negro, they can still define it. If you call it African, they can still define it.
What image of Africa, alright, has existed in the dominant culture up to very recently? I mean, Hegel called it what? The Dark Continent with no history. Alright? Moorish, on the other hand, goes outside that. You don't own that.
Alright? So we can self-define as Moorish. Alright? But it's the Moorish what? Science Temple. Okay? Why science? Why science? I remember, speak freely, young tenure.
I remember once I was being looked at for a position, I won't say the law school, at a prestigious law school. And I went out to dinner with the dean and a number of other people. And the dean was a white guy.
And personally, I don't suspect this dean of having, you know, a cell of racism in his body. I mean, certainly not anything different. Alright? And we were sitting at dinner, and he said explicitly, you know, excuse me, part of the challenge that black people confront in America is that the stereotype of the Negro, alright, is still intellectual inferiority.
Right? Intellectual inferiority. That, that, that, that, to this day, I mean, I wrote something recently, in which I basically said that, I mean, even in my own writings, alright, there are people who will quote what I wrote in Black, Islam and the Black American. Or who will quote what I wrote in Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering.
Alright? But not what I wrote about theology. But not what I wrote about law. But not what I wrote about jurisprudence.
Do you follow what I'm saying? I'm an authority here. Why? Because I'm black. Alright? Why am I not an equal authority there? You see that, you see that, that stereotype? So when you say Moorish on the one hand, and then science, alright, we're breaking that stereotype.
And then tongue. Alright? Because this is still a God-centered, and black religion is God-centered. You don't have black religion without God.
Alright? God is the object of appeal. Okay? So this is what we begin to get in the early proto-Islamic movement. The Moorish Science Temple takes place around 1913.
Characteristics of Black American Islam in Its Formative Period
And here I should say that, when we talk about the phenomenon of black American Islam, in its formative period, we need to note the following. That this is a largely 20th century phenomenon. Largely.
It is largely a northern phenomenon. An urban phenomenon. And a middle, lower middle, to working class phenomenon.
Alright? As a sort of majority movement. Now, I know some of us, you know, when we say middle class, or lower class, or working class phenomenon, for many of us, you know, there's a stigma that attaches to that. Alright? Let me say this.
I don't need the mic, do I? Alright. I'm loud enough. Let me say this.
For any, any movement, any social phenomenon, to be successful, it needs to be able to produce a transgenerationally reproducible culture. And in America, that culture has to be a popular culture. America's not Europe.
Alright? We are the land of popular culture. How many of you can name an opera singer? Don't say Claude Variety because he's in commercials. How many of you can name an opera singer? No, no.
How many? Three? Four? Alright. Five? Six? Some people are going to cheat. Alright? Okay? How about a rapper? How about an R&B artist? How about Motown? How about Hollywood? You begin to get the point that I'm making here.
Alright? Okay? And in those areas, especially music, especially art, especially vernacular culture, those things are owned by working in lower classes. Alright? And you will not get a real, powerful, popular cultural phenomenon. Alright? I have academics.
Did I follow my point there? So when I say it's a working in lower class phenomenon, that's not a slight. That's not a criticism. Alright? That's just a fact.
Okay? So now we have black religion coming out of the South, coming to the North, and we move into these proto-Islamic movements. This brings into focus the second fundamental category that's important for my analysis. And that is the phenomenon of communal conversion.
Communal Conversion
Communal conversion. And I want to stop and say a word about that because it's very easy to be misunderstood. By communal conversion, I do not mean mass conversion to Islam.
I do not mean that. What I mean, however, is the possibility of mass conversion. Okay? Now, what's the difference between the two? Um... Um... I know a white woman who's a Muslim and who wears an hijab.
You know what I'm talking about. Right? Um... This woman has been called how she can go to the mall. Alright? And be approached by a salesperson and ask the following.
Where are you from? What's going on there? The assumption is that this means she can't be American. Alright? And we wonder if she even speaks English. So let us enunciate, alright, so that she understands what we're talking about.
Okay? Alright? What I mean here is that there is a sort of culture identity barrier between Islam and the majority white community. Now, please, everybody, when I say that, I'm talking about the is, not the ought. Everybody understand what I mean by that? I'm talking about what is, not what ought to be.
Okay? Alright? If you don't... There's several manifestations of this. Alright? White Americans who convert to Islam, alright, are often looked upon by their own white communities as something of racial and identity apostates. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive.
Am I right? Right? It's like, what the hell are you doing going and joining them? Alright? Okay? And this, this identity barrier, alright, can be a major barrier to conversion to any religion. Alright? No one wants to be alienated from their own group. Okay? What I mean by communal conversion, therefore, is a phenomenon where that cultural identity barrier is broken, it's crushed, it's smashed, such that one can embrace Islam while at the same time retaining one's identity as an authentic, whatever one came from.
Do I understand the phenomenon? Alright? In other words, I can be authentically black and Muslim. Alright? Okay? Now, again, once you have communal conversion, now what do I mean by communal conversion? I don't mean the actual conversion, alright, but the possibility of that through the shattering of the cultural identity barrier. Alright? Communal conversion is established, in my view, first and foremost by that movement known as the Nation of Islam.
The Nation of Islam and Its Role
It was a proto-Islamic movement, not fully theologically in line with Islam, and yet, it played a major role in ingratiating black Americans in general, alright, to an identity that was aligned with Islam. Alright? And this was done through a major, major seat of appropriation. Adil talked about, you know, the coming of, Adil talked about the international Muslims, yeah, maybe I can use that instead of Arabic, international Muslims and some of the dislocations that came about as a result, as a result of that.
What the Nation of Islam was able to do, alright, and everybody, I know there are all kinds of stereotypes about the Nation of Islam, but just read from the album a little bit. Just relax, okay? Alright? No, I'm very serious, because again, the power of definition, okay, affects what we think about those movements as well, okay? The Nation of Islam is very important, and this is why I place them at the center of my history, because it is they who are more than anyone else responsible for the phenomenon of communal conversion. Alright? Communal conversion takes place when, in fact, I'm able to arrange things, I don't know if arrange is the right word, produce a situation whereby conversion to Islam, in this case, alright, is not only consistent with being black, alright, but is perceived as being what? As something that makes me a more authentic black person.
Does everybody follow that phenomenon? Alright? The Nation of Islam, more than anyone else, did this. Alright? International Muslims did not understand this phenomenon, nor the importance of this
phenomenon. They understood theology only, and that movement was judged based on theology only.
And by the way, not just the international community, Sunni Muslims who were black as well, myself included. I mean, just for, what do you call it, truth in advertising, whatever it is. Alright? Alright? But this is a major, major phenomenon, and I don't think that the history of Islam in black America, alright, as a phenomenon that it is, let me try and give you a sense of what I'm talking about here.
Um, Herbie Hancock is a Buddhist. Right? Uh, uh, Tiger Woods. Alright? Uh, Tina Turner.
Does everybody follow what I mean by that? Does Buddhism enjoy communal conversion in the black community? Do you see the point that I'm trying to make? Alright? Isolated here, isolated, that's fine. Alright? Islam enjoys such, I mean, as a nation, Islam enjoys this more than anybody else. Sunnism blew it.
I'll get to that in a minute. This communal conversion affected not only people who became a part of that movement, alright, but the black community as a whole. Alright? Um, and I'll give you just one indication of that.
The Impact of the Nation of Islam on Black Culture
By the way, I mean, I was, I was, I was there on the east coast when, when these things swept through. I mean, the nation of Islam, they put platform Jews out of business. They put Afro-Hindus out of business.
Alright? And they developed a new persona, a new persona, which I would call the box book. The box book. Alright? What do you think that's a riff off of? The box book.
Alright? The nation of Islam produced an alternative modality of being black in America. A black, Afro- Saxon Protestant with a small people. No, no, I'm very serious about that.
With a small people. Alright? Uh, uh, just imagine this. And this is, I mean, I'm hearing some audio, if you think about it.
How is it that a movement can produce a situation where the daily uptide of Harvard law professors and Wall Street bankers, alright, which is what? Bow tie. How is it that this can be transformed into a marker of a Muslim identity? Does everybody probably want to hear about that? Alright? You have a situation where these black men are walking down the street speaking proper English. Alright? Shoes, spit shot.
Alright? As confident as the day is long. And what do you say? Hmm. There goes one of those black Muslims.
A Muslim identity that borrows nothing from the Muslim world. A Muslim identity that is carved entirely out of American artifacts. Alright? Black, Afro, Saxon, Protestant.
Okay? And that is, that is what goes a long way in promoting this communal convergence. Why? Because that phenomenon includes a very palpable degree of appropriation. You know, there is a, there is a, there is a a slur that you can hurl at black people that's worse than the N-word.
Can I guess? Oreo. What? Oreo. Say it.
Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom. Those are synonyms basically.
Uncle Tom. Does everybody follow that? What's an Uncle Tom? Huh? Wait a minute, I'm gonna go out of work. Anyway.
A collaborator? No, not just a collaborator. A sellout. A race traitor.
How do we measure that? Someone who recognizes the dominant way as the way. Everybody follow what I mean by that? Someone who recognizes the dominant culture's way as the way. Okay? And yet, what do we get out of this? We get black people, alright, appropriating not only middle class, but upper middle class and genteel ways as their own.
Everybody follow what I mean by that? Whereas, they can walk down the street with three-piece suits and bow ties on and nobody sees them as what? Uncle Tom. Right? And want you to walk into a place and find another black with the same attire. Not quite carrying that black Muslim ethos.
You see him as what? You see the point that I'm trying to make? Massive appropriation. I don't know of any other feat of appropriation in American history like this. Alright? And that goes a long way in ingratiating Islam with a broader black community.
Alright? I have a guy I know. He's a very wealthy, I don't say very wealthy, but he's a wealthy person. White guy.
Catholic. He's the editor of a major, major, major Catholic magazine. And he said to me once, he said, I want to thank you for helping me understand something.
I said, what are you talking about? He said, your book, Islam and the Black American helped me understand something. Alright? By the way, I'm not telling you the book. Although, anyway.
I said, what? He said, I remember going downtown in Baltimore and encountering these black Muslim guys. Alright? And being scared poopless. Right? You know what he said.
And being scared poopless. And then he said, but I want to tell you, I was not physically scared. Alright? Because these guys carried themselves like two men.
They were gentlemen. You follow what I'm saying? Alright? I was not physically scared of them. What scared me about them is that they said with every general structure of their body.
Alright? You see this three piece suit? This is mine. I'm not trying to beat at you. And the loss of ownership over that cultural sort of identity scared him to death.
Do I talk about that? Scared him to death. Alright? Now, this is part of the phenomenon that goes into the communal conversion that I'm talking about. Alright? And this is why I place the Nation of Islam in the middle like that.
Okay? Not because they're the most likable or the most orthodox or the most anything. We're trying to explain how Islam spreads among the black community. Without communal conversion, you don't get that.
Are you following me by that? Going all the way back to the 1930s, you had small black Sunni communities in America. In New York, in Pittsburgh, in Cleveland. Alright? In various parts of the country.
Going all the way back to the 1930s. But they are not responsible for communal conversion. Alright? Okay? This is where you get the phenomenon of Islam being looked to as a sort of more authentic expression of blackness than even Christianity.
Cultural Markers of Black Muslim Identity
Alright? And think about this. Even in the non-Muslim community, there's a phenomenon now in the black community. You can almost age somebody.
You can guess their age by this name pattern. There's an I-E-I pattern. Lakisha.
Huh? Shamika. You know that pattern? Alright? These are all imagined imitations of Arabic patterns of names. Alright? That come into the black community.
Alright? And that represent a more authentic modality of being black. Alright? This happened. Alright? And the problem with the international community, it did not recognize it when it came to America.
Alright? Now, communal conversion is in the nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad takes over in 1930, or 1934. He does this all the way up until 1975.
The Nation of Islam Under Elijah Muhammad
As you can tell, I'm skipping a lot of detail. We don't... You want the details? Okay. Alright.
You said yes? We'll be here all night. But the point that I'm trying to make is this phenomenon is growing. And not only Elijah Muhammad.
Elijah Muhammad went to prison for a while. Alright? For draft evasion. He refused to go into the armed services.
Alright? It is said that it was his wife, Clara Muhammad, who held things together during his absence. Alright? There are lots of personalities, whose names we can't get into, who are behind the scenes. But we're talking about the general phenomenon of how this thing unfolds.
So, Elijah Muhammad is running the nation of Islam from 1934 all the way up to 1975. Now, during that time, you get a number of sort of spinoff movements. For example, the 5% Movement is a spinoff from the nation of Islam.
Alright? The Ansarullah Movement is a spinoff from the nation of Islam. But the nation of Islam is sort of that central piece. Now, the Sunni community is still there.
As I said, small, pretty much storefront communities. They don't really have that kind of national presence as the nation of Islam has. Because the nation of Islam has national leadership.
It's a centralized sort of national movement. Alright? The next big phenomenon occurs in 1965. Alright? 1965 is important for a couple of reasons.
Malcolm X and the National Origins Act
One, the major popularizer of the nation of Islam, Malcolm X, is assassinated. Alright? Malcolm X is phenomenal in terms of his importance. Alright? Perhaps primarily as a popularizer of the nation of Islam.
Malcolm crisscrossed the country establishing temples all over the place. And we don't have to talk about how Malcolm's articulations appeal to the broader black American community. Alright? Such that the broader black American community almost assumed a sense of cultural ownership in Islam.
And these things don't sound like very much. Alright? But if you're trying to build a movement, alright, they're absolutely essential. Absolutely essential.
Alright? So, what happens in 1965? Malcolm X is assassinated. That's one thing. That same year, something even more momentous happens.
The National Origins Act is prolonged. Now the National Origins Act goes back to 1924. In 1924, to make a very long story short, the Congress passed a law.
And by the way, you know, we think that immigration, it's like, what's all this stuff about immigration? It's always been an issue. It's always been an issue. 1924 was an attempt to deal with the issue of immigration.
It was a very complex law, but to make a very long story short, it basically was designed to ensure that America would remain a country whose majority was from Northwest Europe. They didn't want East Europeans. Alright? They wanted Northwest Europeans.
And it's a very complicated thing, but basically it might be described as depending on the percentage of people from the country you're applying from that are already here, that's the percentage that's eligible for immigration. Everybody understand what I mean by that? So if the English are 46% of the population in America, then 46% of the applicants for immigration are English. And down and down and down the line.
Alright? By the way, why do you think America's majority white? I mean, for the moment. You ever ask that question? Whites have more sex than blacks and Latinos? Why is America's majority white? I'm sorry? Okay? The immigration policies contribute majorly to this. Okay? In 1965, that policy was prorogued.
Alright? And there were two major contributors to this. One was the Cold War. America sort of woke up and sort of decided that we're really losing out to the Soviet Union.
It was the Soviet Union then. Alright? That we're getting brain drains out of all these Muslim and Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Alright? But the Soviets are getting more than we're getting.
Alright? And this is not good policy. That was one incentive. The other incentive was actually the Civil Rights Movement here in America.
And the idea that just as it was wrong to discriminate against blacks on the streets of Selma, alright, it was wrong to discriminate against people of color applying for immigration. Alright? And so the National Origins Act is prorogued. This opens up the floodgates for the parents or grandparents, alright, of many of the people who are Muslims in this room.
The Arrival of International Muslims
Alright? Now, I don't want to overstate things. I'm not saying that there were no immigrant communities or international communities before 1965. I'm not saying that at all.
Alright? And that's a documented fact that they were here. But in terms of this critical mass coming at a time, and this is important as well, when the Muslim world itself is in the throes of an Islamic revivalism. Okay? Alright? This is a very important fact or element in what goes on.
We are coming now from countries where people are increasingly turning back to their Islamic roots. Alright? Okay? As Islamic revivalism begins to unfold. This is the beginning of the coming of the international community.
The Shift in Basis of Authority
Now, so far, with some exceptions, black religion has been an element of the basis of authority in black American Islam. And by that, I mean that Islam itself would be seen and interpreted through a lens, alright, on the basis of which it would seek to do the work of black religion. I.e., promote the health of a black community and protect, insulate, and empower it against the forces of black supremacy and anti-black racism.
Alright? That was simply a part of how Islam tended to be interpreted. Okay? And the degree to which it was exclusively that or not varied from community to community. It would be more that way in that middle to what I call the super-tradition.
The super-tradition, which is the intellectual religious tradition of Islam as the basis of authority. Alright? In other words, now, if you want to talk about how we can address the issues of racism in
America, now you have to do that on the basis of explicit arguments from the Quran, from the Hadith, from the Sunnah, maybe even from the schools of law. But this is now the basis of authority by which you articulate Islam.
Alright? Before, black religion would have provided much of the basis for how you articulated your plan of procedure. Alright? But with the coming of the international community, there's a shift. And part of the reason for that shift is this.
If traditional black Sunnis and the nation of Islam are going back and forth about who is and who is not a Muslim, alright, one of the things that conferred immediate authority upon the international community is what? They come from the Muslim world. If they aren't Muslims, who is? Alright? And yet, they, this is going to sound polemical, but it's not. They only represented Sunni tradition by assumption.
Does anybody understand what I mean by that? In other words, to put it bluntly, out of skin, okay, represented religious authority. Okay? If you look like you came from the Muslim world, you were presumed to know what you're talking about when you said you think about Islam. Even if you didn't know what you were talking about.
No, no. I'm being very serious about this. Alright? Most of the people who came to America from the Muslim world were not clerics. Had nothing to do with any religious tradition. Alright? Nothing to do with it at all. Alright? Of course they had, you know, popular practices and certain assumptions.
I mean, you know, Christians in America sort of know how to be Christians. Muslims, you following me about that? Maybe that's, don't get them any kind of theological discussion. They don't know anything about that.
Alright? This is what you had largely in the immigrant community. Now the Shiite community is an exception because somehow that may be the question and answer. But for the majority, Sunni community, you had an international community coming with a presumption of religious authority.
Tensions Between Communities
Alright? Okay? Against a black American community. Alright? Who's now in transition from black religion to Sunni tradition. Alright? And this leads to a relationship of domination.
Alright? Or potential domination. Now what is domination? Domination as I define it. Are we going over time? Huh? No, let me wrap up real quick.
Domination is a phenomenon where I take your story from you and I give you a supporting role in my story. Alright? And when you assume a supporting role in my story, everything that you do enhances me even if it doesn't enhance you. Alright? And this is sort of what happened in this early period.
So for example, Palestine becomes a major issue. Police brutality is not. Alright? Kashmir becomes a major issue.
Alright? Urban poverty is not. You see the point that I'm making? Alright? And not only that, these become Islamic issues. Okay? These cannot be defended as Islamic issues.
Alright? And this is the beginning of that tension that we find between the international community and the black American community. And that tension is going on. Now in 1975, Elijah Muhammad dies.
His son, Imam al-Din Muhammad, takes over and redirects that entire community into Sunni Islam. 90% of it. Alright? Farrakhan stays and stays with the original nation of Islam.
But 90% or so come into Sunni Islam. Here's where you begin also to get, however, a concerted effort on the part of black American Sunnis to learn that Sunni intellectual tradition. Alright? So that they can get about the business of articulating Islam in America for themselves.
Alright? That phenomenon has reached sort of maturity today. Alright? But in the interim period, that tension remains. Now, the next big thing that we get after 1965 or 1975 is of course, well you get a number of things, but let me try to keep it short.
The Impact of September 11, 2001
The big one is what? 9-11. 9-11. Now, I have to be careful about how I say this.
Because it can be misunderstood and misused. 9-11 was a horrific act of terrorism. Alright? And my training as a scholar of Islamic law says that it was an act of terrorism that Islam itself would condemn.
No question about that. Alright? Innocent civilians killed. No question about that.
Publicly directed violence. You don't even know these people. You just directed an act to the public.
That is among the most severely punished crimes in Islam. Alright? So far, moral and legal terms according to Islamic law, 9-11 is condemned by follow that. And yet, this is where it gets dicey, but I'm going to say it.
9-11 carried a certain silver lining for this relationship between international and black Americans. Alright? What was that silver lining? 9-11 forced that community to recognize, alright, a new reality. That all the presuppositions that they had brought from the Muslim world with them, alright, up to 9- 11, America was an ideological playground.
You could say anything. You could write anything. Don't believe me? Go back to some of the Friday sermons before 9-11 and see what you hear.
Some of those were Muslims, you know what I'm talking about. It was an ideological playground. 9-11 put that to an end, alright? Muslims now have to be more disciplined in the way they go about their business.
Not only that, not knowing, I mean, immigrant Muslims, let me say this, I have two more points and then I'll stop. Conceit. You gotta say it, right? No, I want you to like me.
Irrelevant. You see, here's part of the silver lining. America is a land of white supremacy.
White Supremacy and the Construction of Whiteness
Now hold on, hold on. I don't say that as a sneer, okay? You bad white supremacy. Even if I believe that, that's not the point that I'm making.
Okay? Alright? When we say in America, women like X, who are we talking about? Say it. White women. We ain't talking about Latinas.
Right? They don't even come to mind. Okay? White is normal. Normal is invisible.
Invisibility is the greatest power you can have in any society. Everybody follow what I mean by that? Huh? Right? Now, you have this construct called whiteness with normal written on top. Everybody follow what I mean by that? Everybody that's come to America has tried to what? Get into that whiteness.
Some of you would be surprised that some of you in this room who 75, 80 years ago were not white. Irish. White.
What the heck are you talking about? They ain't white. Jews. White.
They ain't white. No, no, I'm very serious. I'm very serious about this.
Alright? Those are groups that became white. Italians. Do you realize that there were Italians prosecuted under miscegenation laws? Know what miscegenation laws are? You can't have sex with white women.
We would prosecute Italians for having sex with white women. Tony Soprano would have been prosecuted. No, I'm very serious.
I'm very serious. Alright? So you have this construct, but the bottom border is perforated. You can get through.
Do you follow what I mean by that? So, Italians get through, right? Lithuanians get through. Jews get through. Irish get through.
And guess what? In the early stages when they came here, guess who else was on their way to get through? International Muslims. Do you follow what I mean by that? International Muslims were on their way. Now, you have to understand something about the international Muslim community in America.
The Accomplished Nature of the International Muslim Community
This is one of the most educated, accomplished minority communities in America. Okay? Whereas, you know, Italians, you know, three generations ago worked three jobs just to put the first kid through
college. Do you follow what I mean by that? Immigrant Muslims or international Muslims come through at the time.
I was invited to a friend of mine back when I lived in Michigan. I was invited to his house to have a meeting with some members of the Michigan Supreme Court. Now, you know what his standing is if he can get members of the Michigan Supreme Court just to come to his house and have a conversation.
And he invites us there. Okay, it's myself because we're going to talk about the relationship between American law and Islamic law. So, we're about to have our conversation.
And before we start, the Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court got up and said the following. He said, I'm English. I'm English.
My family has been here 300 years. And my kids keep asking me, Dad, when are we going to get rich? Okay? Now, why did he say that? Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that my Syrian friend, whose house it was, who still had a thick accent, had a Ferrari parked outside next to his tennis courts. When inside his house, he's got an indoor kid swimming pool.
You follow what I'm saying? And the Chief Justice is saying, First Generation. Comes in like that. Alright? It's a very accomplished community.
And for that reason, it's able to establish institutions. Alright? At a clip that's not as fast as the black American community has been able to do. Alright? 9-11, however, blocks that southern border.
Even international Muslims who are legally white are no longer socially white. Alright? That brings them into more of an ability to identify with their black American brothers and sisters. Alright? Those tensions are still there.
Alright? But that's opened up a kind of conversation. Trust me, I'm sorry to say this, I mean, what you said tonight, alright, we might not have heard that 30 years ago. Alright? That's a very common thing to say today.
Not so much 30 years ago. Alright? I get the feeling that my time has run out. I wanted to say a little word about HIPHOP, but maybe that can come up in the question and answer, if we have any time for question and answer now.
I apologize. Thank you very much.
Question and Answer Session
Moderator: We are going to do a question and answer. There's another event here at 8, so we're going to try and get this done in like 20 minutes. So, that being said, you're an academic. And I think fielding questions from the crowd might be something you're used to. And we also don't have an
extra mic, so if y'all can talk loud, that'd be great. And let's do this until, like, let's say 7pm. If we have any questions, if not, we're good.
Question 1: Spinoff Movements and Black-African Muslim Relationships
Questioner: I'm not sure this is a lot, but I have two questions. So, my first question is, you mentioned the 5% issue as a spinoff of Muslim Islam. I don't really know much about the 5% issue, but I always thought, why do you think there was this spinoff? Like, why there were spinoffs of the Muslim Islam? Like, was there a dissatisfaction with this? And then my second question is, in your research, how have you observed relationships between Black international Islam, like, between Muslim Islam and Black international Islam?
Dr. Jackson: The first question is that we have to take these kinds of issues piece by piece. There's a very specific story that goes along with the breaking off of the 5% from the Nation of Islam. Clarence 13X, who founded the 5%ers, was originally a member of the Nation of Islam.
He was caught one day teaching unauthorized lessons of the Nation of Islam. He was rebuked for that. That ultimately led to his decision to go a separate route and start something different. Something similar happened with the Ansar community. So, you have schisms within the Nation that ultimately result in spin-off movements that become their own thing. Alright? Does that make sense?
Questioner: Yes, it does, so it's split off as an individual who then, like, establishes another movement.
Dr. Jackson: Yes. As for the relationship between African and Black American Muslims, it varies. There's a colleague of mine, Zain Abdullah, who's at Temple University, who's written a book called Black Месса.
It's about the relationship between Black American and African Muslims in Harlem. And some of the same tensions exist. Right? There's harmony and there's tension.
And part of that, you know, also is related to the fact that, to some extent, Black American Muslims are still still sort of in the process of crafting their own understanding of how to take ownership in America. Yes.
Question 2: Hip-Hop and Islamic Identity
Questioner: Can you elaborate on the hip-hop question?
Dr. Jackson: Well, I think that what I would say about hip-hop is the following.
You know, we've talked about the importance of Black religion as a sort of basis of authority for the articulation of Islam in the Black community. You know, coming into the 90s and then the 2000s, there's some questions as to whether Black religion is even still alive, right? Both in Christianity and Islam. And there are some who might argue that whereas Black religion may have been the wavelength among which Islam traveled in the past, it is now hip-hop.
All right? Hip-hop is now the preserver of the quote-unquote Islamic identity. Even if it's not a purveyor of Islamic ideals, necessarily. All right? And not a teacher.
Does that make sense? All right, in other words, in other words, look, it has been said, not by me, it has been said that Islam is the unofficial religion of hip-hop. Right? But again, the question becomes, is that more as identity, all right, or actual practice? Does everybody see what I mean by that? And I think that what's important from my perspective is that we don't make the same mistake with hip-hop that we made with the Nation of Islam. All right? And throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Because the Nation of Islam was irregular in terms of theology, certainly under the influence of the international Muslim community, which large segments of the assuming Black community were gravitating toward, the entire nation was dismissed. Big time mistake. Identity is important.
All right? Identity is important. A young Pakistani, a former student of mine, said the following to me. She said, look, look, I know that some of these young Black American Muslims who are like hip- hoppers, I know that their Islam is not necessarily practiced in the way that it's supposed to.
All right? But they strongly identify as Muslim. Okay? And she said, look, if these people make it through their 20s, the 30s will bring something different. In other words, their Islamic identity sustains them through their 20s, by the time they hit their 30s, practice will begin to catch up. It's just phases of life, right? And she said to me, those in the immigrant community on the other hand, all right, when they lose their Islamic identity, there's no place else to go. All right?
So I think that that's an important thing to recognize as well. But we can go down the list of, you know, people who identify with Islam, or who are Muslims, who are hip-hoppers, you know, from Mos Def to Lupe, to Ghostface Keller, I mean, you can just go down the list.
All right? And the percentages, I think, are disproportionate. Disproportionately high. All right? Yes?
Question 3: American Muslim Identity After 9/11
Questioner: I have actually two questions. The first question is kind of related to you. You said that the Nation of Islam was the main core that had basically a mass conversion of bringing the African- American community.
Dr. Jackson: No, I would not word it like that.
I would say that the Nation of Islam produced the redefinition of black American culture and culture identity such that the barrier between Islam and blackness was shattered.
Questioner: So now, knowing that perspective, after 9-11, everything, all the immigrant community got blocked up, but the black community still stood strong. Now, going forward, what is the identification of being an American black Muslim? Or at least just an American Muslim.
For example, the women who wear the hijab, you can instantly tell that that's a Muslim. Men, maybe some wear a beard, some don't. It's all over the place.
For example, in Nation of Islam, you had the bow tie, the suit, everything that identified. You knew that that was a Muslim. So what is the next phase that you see of integration between the African American community and the international community that can identify itself as an American Muslim?
Dr. Jackson: You really want that? No, no, because, you know, we want it when the FBI shows up.
But then when we get back to the mosque, alright, we want to sort of be the real Muslims as opposed to those converts. You follow? So, let's just be honest about what was mine. Let me ask you a question in a bit of a different way.
I think that there's some developments that I haven't had a chance to talk about, but that depends directly upon what you're talking about. One is that both the international community, and I would argue, to a slightly lesser degree, as well as the black American community, abuse the Muslim tradition to the extent that it eliminated large segments of the Muslim population. Alright? What do you mean by that? I mean that if you go across college campuses across the country, as I have in my early years, you will be shocked to encounter the number of young Muslims who actually see themselves as believing, practicing Muslims, but who are scared to death of their own religious tradition.
Alright? Because of the manner in which it's been used to control and dominate, as opposed to empower. And what this is now producing is a new generation of Muslims, black and immigrant, who are searching for alternative sort of bases of authority by which they can articulate a mode of Islam. Alright? So you have this sort of clerical activist divide now.
That is partly a function of the way that tradition has been handled. Far from both sides. It's not all the clerical side's fault.
Alright? In fact, that leads me to the next point that I want to make. We have another problem in this country. And I think that we're not aware of it.
You know, you have to be aware of the fact that, I don't care where you come from, if you're in America, alright, part of your religious history, a major part of your religious history is the history of Europe. Okay? Because that religious history comes to America with the early Americans. And part of that history is that religion is a problem.
And religion is something against which society has to be protected. Alright? And the liberal epistemology of the Western Academy, alright, is such that it wants always to domesticate religion. So that it can never challenge the state or the dominant culture, and it breaks down communities into individuals, radical individuals.
The kind of thing that you're talking about requires precisely what many Muslims are unwilling to do. And that is, shut up, sit down, and go along with the program. No, no, no.
I mean, that can be abused. Please don't misunderstand me. But you don't imagine for one moment that the nation of Islam, for example, could do all the things that I'm talking about doing, alright,
without an effective hierarchy.
Is everybody following what I mean by that? You get me? Now, that makes me sound like I'm one of these Bolsheviks or something like that, right? No, that's not what I'm talking about.
Okay? But if you want to talk about this right here could become the new Muslim god. Is everybody following what I mean by that? All we have to have is King Jackson or Amir al-Mu'minin Jackson? Who says? That's it.
You go there, you buy it tomorrow. This is what I want you to wear every day. You hear me? You hear me? And when people hear you say As-salamu alaykum, they're going to see this.
When people see you pray in public, they're going to see this. When people see you walking with your wife, they're going to see this. You see what I mean by that? And over a period of time, what happens? This becomes what? You follow what I mean by that? But we're not going to do that, are we? Alright? So, make up your mind.
No, you can't I'm taking it. I hope that answers your question. Yes?
Question 4: Survival of Institutions and Social Media Challenges
Questioner: Oh, I think that I think that all of them survived.
Dr. Jackson: I think there are a couple things I mean, again, some of the things that I talked about in terms of I mean, look, we don't When you talk about institutions How can I put this without getting too academic? We don't live in a vacuum is what I'm trying to say. And so when you get developments such as the rise of social media or something like that where you don't have any control over what your flock, let's say, has access to you get people who emerge as authorities with very questionable qualifications and all these kinds of things and this is going to have an impact on the texture of the community that you live in. Now you can talk about what institutions remain but how do those institutions relate to all of this? And so there's much there's much thought going on to these things right now.
And I think that while many of us may get the impression that my presentation of Black America is somewhat bleak I don't see it that way at all. I'll tell you a little story. I have a nephew who's a Muslim young I give him a C. No, no, no, no.
I'm not but the day after 9-11 schools were closed. The second day after 9-11 schools were open. This boy was about 12 years old.
You know what he did? He went to school public school with a fuckle ball. Meaning what? What? Say something. What? Say something.
No, no, no. You get my point. That's still part of the Black American Muslim community.
Right? And I think that for me social media is a problem. Not simply because of the emergence of quote unquote authorities of questionable qualifications but because of the destruction of anything. It leads to internal bleeding.
Did you follow what I meant by that? You know, you and I can have a See, put it this way. If you get up and just call me the n-word straight up I'm not saying it would be a good thing to do but I don't think that very many people would blame me if I if I told you. You follow what I mean by that? In other words, an open defense elicits an open response.
You follow what I mean by that? But when your offense isn't open it's just a slight it's a diss. You follow what I mean by that? See, I can't even address you because the first thing I have to do before I can address you is admit that you hurt me. And I'm not going to do that.
So I'm just going to bleed internally and hate your guts forever. Does everybody follow what I mean by that? This is the kind of thing that's going on all the time now among Muslims. Not everybody, but right? This is a major challenge.
The Importance of Etiquette and Personal Responsibility
It's a major challenge. So to me, a major challenge is just getting etiquette, manners, etiquette back into the everyday practice of Islam. Where we can differ.
Differ strongly, alright? But differ in a spirit of brotherhood, sisterhood, and respect. That's enormously important. Because if you damage me on that little tiny issue when the big issue arises we can't cooperate.
Because trust is gone. So it's not all these, you know, and I'll say this probably five minutes. You know, everybody's looking to the scholars and the imams and the activists and all the leaders which is, yeah, they have their role, but so do you.
You understand what I mean by that? In fact, you can do that in the ways that they can. I saw a commercial one time, and I'm just saying this because it really hit me. Some of you may have seen this commercial.
There's a white guy sitting in an office. He's doing a job interview. He's interviewing for a job.
There's a Latino guy sitting on the other side, right? He's interviewing for the job. So the interview ends, and the Latino guy gets up and goes out. Another white guy comes in and says, so how did it go? He balls up the Latino guy's resume and throws it in the trash and says, I think we got enough color around here.
Right? The second white guy reaches in the trash can, takes out the resume, slams it down on the desk, strains it out, and says, I think he lost something here. You follow what I mean by that? That one act, you follow what I'm saying? Says that this is not acceptable. We won't put up with this.
All of us can do this. Does everybody follow what I mean by that? You don't have to be no sheikh. You don't have to be any math.
You don't have to be a stylist. You don't have to have a PhD. Brother, that's not right.
Sister, that's not right. You can't talk to people like that. Everybody follow what I mean by that? We can all do that.
And if we fail in that regard, it's not the scholar's fault. It's not the activist's fault. It's not the sheikh's fault.
It's our fault.
Question 5: Shiite vs Sunni Communities
Questioner: Professor, you mentioned the sheer contrast. But I would say that the Shiites have always had a much more structured hierarchy.
Dr. Jackson: And that has made for a number of differences within the Shiite community relative to the Sunni community. And I think that as well, the Shiites had certainly, going back to where I used to live in Michigan in places like Dearborn, they had clerical presence from very early on. So that's one of the difference groups between the Shiite and the Sunni community.
Yes?
Question 6: Tensions Over Blackness
Questioner: You mentioned earlier how the traditional Black Sunni Muslims, there's obviously a difference in theology, and you're saying that this wouldn't be considered completely theology or whatever, but was there a discussion or a tension in terms of who was more black?
Dr. Jackson: Hmm. Yeah, I guess around the edges. I guess and that probably depends on where you are, but I guess around the edges the nation of Islam would probably claim a quote-unquote more blackness whereas traditional Sunnis would say oh, we're black, alright? But blackness is not the measure of Islam.
So you get but you get those tensions. I think there should be one more.
Question 7: The Role of Women
Questioner: How did you see the role of women in the coming together of these two communities, the black American community and the international Muslim community?
Dr. Jackson: [The answer to this question was not captured in the transcript as the moderator began closing the session]
Closing Remarks
Moderator: I'll cut up a whole bunch of fruit for you guys sitting out there in the hallway. We've got mangoes, we've got guavas, we've got everything. Please take some. There are plates out there and forks for you.
And thank you guys so much. It means a lot.
End of Lecture
Document prepared from lecture transcript
Dr. Sherman Jackson
"A History of Black Islam in America"
Claremont Colleges
Sponsors:
Office of Black Student Affairs, Pomona College
Claremont McKenna College
MSA of the Claremont Colleges
Special thanks to:
Adil Zaid, Muslim Chaplain
Farouk, MSA Vice President
All attendees, students, faculty, and staff