A CLEAR VISION

Our Collective Vision is to see healthy BlackAmerican Muslim  families who are clear about the worship of Allah alone, clear about the Prophethood of Muhammad (pboh) and committed to the realization of a ‘full dignified life in America.’

 A ‘full dignified life in America’  means a life that is treated equally under the law, with equal access to quality education, both secular and religious for men and women,  decent housing, full employment opportunities for all people and a society free of white supremacy and other totalitarian inclinations. In other words, a truly pluralistic society that protects  freedom of all religion, freedom of the press, freedom from fear and freedom from want.

It has been said by Black Liberationist and activist, Frederick Douglass, "We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future."  In keeping with that thought,  BlackAmerican Muslims will continue to engage the world as we find it, not as it was in the 7th or the 12th centuries, secure in our understanding of the myriad factors that make up the unique BlackAmerican Muslim identity, an identity that was born in captivity, nurtured in Slavery, matured under Jim Crow and come of age in the Post Civil-Rights era.  

Islam is not a Monolith

As a Contemplationist Muslim, I favor viewing the Shariah as a ‘work in progress’ as opposed to an immutable body of Law. We should, as Dr. Fazlur Rahmah suggests, go back to the context of Qur’anic revelation in order to understand the Divine Intention behind the laws and then come back to our contemporary context and formulate new laws and approaches that satisfy that Divine Intention. (see Islamic Methodology in History by Fazlur Rahman and Reopening Muslim Minds by Mustafa Aykol)

I personally disagree with the concept of hegemonic Islam, which believes that 'normative Islam' is limited to the Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) region and disregards other valid expressions of Islam. This notion is sometimes even referred to as religious-cultural imperialism and has racist undertones. The origins of MENA Islam can be traced back to military expansion and conquests. On the other hand, traditions such as Chinese Islam and Sub-Saharan - West African Islam do not have a history of imperial ambitions. Instead, their spread was influenced by interactions between Chinese peasants, Muslim teachers, African itinerant scholars and Muslim merchants who were admired for their personal practices and behaviors.

Simply put, MENA Islam was militaristic in nature and West African and Chineese Islam were cultural and intellectual in its approach to spreading the religion.

************************************************************************************************************************

There is Buddhism

Then there is Indian Buddhism

Then there is Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism

Then there is Korean Buddhism

Then there Japanese Buddhism or Zen Buddhism

Then there is Tibetan Buddhism, etc

….and within these categories of  Buddhism are varying schools of thought or approach. For example, Korean Buddhism may have 3 distinct approaches to practice and reconciling its internal discrepancies. Other forms of Buddhism may only emphasize one.

Islam is subject to the same kind of approaches, interpretations and practices to reconcile its internal discrepancies depending upon in what cultures the Muslims finds themselves and the emphasis of one approach may be entirely different from that of another.

There is Islam

There is Sunni Islam

There is Shia Islam

There is Chinese Islam

There is West African Islam

There is Sufi Islam

There is Ahmadiyyah Islam, etc

…in the traditional Sunni understanding of Islam, over the many hundreds of years has developed various approaches, schools of thought, to reconcile many of its internal discrepancies. There are rationalist and anti-rationalist approaches. Modernist and very conservative avenues of practice.

There are many approaches to the practice of Islam.