يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ كُونُواْ قَوَّامِينَ لِلّهِ شُهَدَاء بِالْقِسْطِ وَلاَ يَجْرِمَنَّكُمْ شَنَآنُ قَوْمٍ عَلَى أَلاَّ تَعْدِلُواْ

اعْدِلُواْ هُوَ أَقْرَبُ لِلتَّقْوَى وَاتَّقُواْ اللّهَ إِنَّ اللّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ 

O you who have faith!   Be ever steadfast in your devotion to Allah, bearing witness to the truth in all circumstances; and never let hatred of any-one cause you to swerve away from justice.   Be just, this is closest to being God-conscious.   And remain conscious of Allah: verily, Allah is aware of all that you do.    (Sura al Ma'ida 5:8)

وماذا يطلب منك الرب إلا أن تنصف ، وأن تحب الرحمة وأن تسير بتواضع مع إلهك

                              And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Old Testament- Micah 6:8)

I choose a practice which is an embodied resistance that privileges the Black American Muslim Experience and this is the focus of my religious contemplation. This resistance is to the status quo (structurally racist institutions) and Hegemonic Islam, which is the notion that Arab and North African religious practices are the only legitimate expressions of Islam, which in itself is a form of racist thinking.

There are some BlackAmerican Muslims that have not made the connection between their ‘blackness’ in a structurally racist society and the practice of Islam as a force for not only spiritual development but also societal improvement, these souls float on islands of illusion.      

To be a BlackAmerican Muslim once conjured up images of progressive, sober, community active men and women who had their fingers on the ‘pulse of the Black Community’.    I fear that this is no longer the case.    m.a.ibrahim                  

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You don’t shape history, history shapes you.

The conscious decision to become Muslim in America, in the late 1950’s thru the mid 70’s,  was a revolutionary act. Consider this, I chose to become a BlackAmerican Muslim in a White Christian Nation.

To change your name, change your manner of dress, change your diet, to take up fasting and commit yourself to acts of devotion five times a day were all ‘counter-cultural’  acts of resistance to the status quo.  Resistance to structural racism, to inequality before the  law and to economic policies that ensure a permanent underclass.

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إِنَّ شَرَّ الدَّوَابَّ عِندَ اللّهِ الصُّمُّ الْبُكْمُ الَّذِينَ لاَ يَعْقِلُونَ

Indeed, the worst living beings in the sight of Allah are the deaf and dumb who do not use their reason. (8:22)

الَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ اللّهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَىَ جُنُوبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ

Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation in the heavens and the earth. (3:191)

كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَارَكٌ لِّيَدَّبَّرُوا آيَاتِهِ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُوْلُوا الْأَلْبَابِ

A Book which We have sent down unto thee, full of blessings, that they may mediate on its Signs, and that men of understanding may receive admonition. (38:29)

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Orientation- Contemplationist :  Contemplation (muraqaba) is the source of Islamic spirituality. Contemplative spirituality is actualized through a thinking or reflective process rather than the cessation of intellectual activity. This spirituality is arrived at by contemplating Allah’s Magnificence in the creation of our universe and our own realities. Our position is based on many ayahs of the Qur’an like the three above.

Within the pages of the Qur'an, one frequently encounters the verb "aqala," which translates to "to connect ideas together, to reason or understand an intellectual argument." This verb appears about fifty times throughout this sacred text, highlighting its significance in encouraging rational thought processes among Muslims. Instead of relying solely on dogmatic assertions, Quranic verses invite readers to employ their mental faculties actively.

• There are 6,236 verses in the Qur'an

• Only 260 verses address legal matters

• 750 verses advise and encourage the Believers to reflect on matters and use their reason for successful outcomes.

  Guided by the principles of Faith and Reason, الايمان والعقل , a Contemplationist Muslim is one that  believes that the Shariah (Divine Law) can be both binding on the individual and subject to contemporary interpretations in an ever changing world and we reject all notions of imposing any interpretation of Islam as a 'political architectural construct'.  

  
  

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“The spread of Islam in the black community actually begins with what we might call the Proto-Islamic movements. (i.e. Moorish Science Temple and Nation of Islam)

These were movements among black Americans that had for one reason or the other, became disaffected from Christianity and began to search for other modalities of religiosity in America.

Islam was something that they found, more as an idea or an orientation and perhaps most importantly an alternative vocabulary.

You have to go back to the 1910s or the 1920s to recall that at that time Black Americans were still in that stage of trying to carve out an identity that would enable them to escape the negative implications of blackness that had been imposed upon them by the dominant culture.

Islam provided an avenue to that, because Islam was looked upon as being an entity over which the dominant culture exercised no control, so that blacks would be free to engage in this process of self identity formation, as Muslims or as people associated with Islam, in ways that they would not be able to do so as Christians at that time….Because of these proto-Islamic movements, Islam became a legitimate expression of Blackness within the broader Black American community.

Islam, in Black America, begins as part of a communal search for tools with which to combat racism and redefine American blackness.” Sherman Jackson,Ph.D.

  And that struggle  continues... (click here)