Representing Father–Son Relationships among African-American Muslim Men in Film and Television

ABSTRACT

African-American Muslims are well-known for their prison reform ministries and initiatives aimed at assisting disenfranchised men and women in inner city communities. In media discourse, the redemption narratives of young African-American Muslim men in these environments have often been stimulated by African-American Muslim leaders who function as highly influential fatherly figures that usually stress an importance of fatherhood in ameliorating juvenile delinquency and hopelessness. While fatherhood is a cherished institution among Muslim families, this analysis focuses on depictions of father-son relationships among African-American Muslim men in film and television. This study examines relationships between Muslim sons and non-Muslim fathers, Muslim fathers and non-Muslim sons, and fathers and sons who both embrace Islam throughout these visual narratives. In exploring these relationships, the article examines the impact of African-American Muslim fathers on their sons’ faith and spiritual development, negotiation of masculinity, management of racism, confrontation of Islamophobia, and maintenance of discipline, social mobility, and life skills.

KEYWORDS:

• African-American Muslims
• fatherhood
• film and television
• Black masculinity
• media

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Kameron J. Copeland http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2576-4384

Notes

1. The term ‘original’ is used to refer to the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1930 to 1975, founded by W.D. Fard and led by Elijah Muhammad, as opposed to any of the splinter groups formed after Elijah Muhammad’s death, such as that of Louis Farrakhan.

2. The importance of motherhood in Islam is indicated in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Book 32, No. 6180: ‘Abu Huraira reported that a person came to Allah’s Messenger (Peace be upon him) and said: Who among the people is most deserving of a fine treatment from my hand? He said: Your mother. He again said: Then who (is the next one)? He said: Again it is your mother (who deserves the best treatment from you). He said: Then who (is the next one)? He (the Holy Prophet) said: Again, it is your mother. He (again) said: Then who? Thereupon he said: Then it is your father.’

3. Abu Talib ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib was the uncle of Muhammad, who began raising him at the age of eight after the death of his parents and paternal grandparents. He remained protective of his nephew once he began to preach the message of Islam, which was perceived as a threat by various clans who attempted to bribe Abu Talib. Similarly, in Bilal’s Stand, despite the fact that Bilal’s mother and much of his family are unsupportive of his desire to attend the University of Michigan, Uncle Malik supports his goals in the absence of his father.

4. Siraj Wahhaj is an African-American imam, who was introduced to Islam when he joined Elijah Muhammad’s NOI in the 1960s. After following Warith Deen Mohammed into Islamic orthodoxy, he left the community and founded Masjid at-Taqwa in Brooklyn, NY, becoming one of the foremost African-American imams and the first Muslim to give the invocation at the United States House of Representatives. Siraj Wahhaj’s presence is significant in that he also has ties to the Black Power Movement via his involvement in the NOI and his activism in the predominately Black inner city. For example, in 1988, he led an anti-drug patrol program, closing fifteen drug houses in Bedford Stuyvesant in forty days. Despite his work, which is likely representative of the legacy Hassan desires for Tariq to inherit, he has also been affected by anti-Muslim sentiments that have attempted to associate him with terrorism, as a federal prosecutor once believed he was a conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (Knight 2006, 12; Rashid 2013).

5. With roots in 2000–3000 BCE Africa, cool pose is a collection of symbols and behaviors that are used to define a ‘subcultural manhood’ among Black men, as observed in clothing, hairstyles, gait, speech, handshakes, and other demeanors. While mainstream teachings on masculinity among White men encompass hegemony, power, and the accumulation of wealth, cool pose and its culture of ‘coolness’ serves as a coping mechanism for Black men, who are often deprived of justice and the opportunities available to White men (Hall 2009, 532–533; Majors et al. 1994).

6. The negative portrayal of Black mothers in Black male-centered cinema and television of the 1990s has been prominently critiqued by Black feminists, who observed that the problematic portrayals of Black women as insufficient providers and ‘welfare mothers’ have been used as justification for White political attacks on Black families (Reid 1993, 109–136; Covington 2010). Moreover, the notion articulated in these films that Black mothers are unable successfully to raise their sons alone was often attributed to White capitalistic patriarchal norms that are heavily reliant on the myth that men must be ‘superior protectors and providers’ as opposed to having a value and role equal to that of mothers. This simultaneously produced harsh critiques of fatherless homes in these films, fueled by a desire to retain an image that is respectable and affirming of White patriarchal societal norms (hooks 2004, 112).

7. During Elijah Muhammad’s leadership of the NOI, Warith Deen Mohammed was occasionally suspended from the organization for diverging from his father’s doctrine, out of his desire to teach Islamic orthodoxy. In addition, during Malcolm X’s separation from the NOI, Mohammed was credited with exposing him to orthodox Islam and even offered a position of leadership in Malcolm’s newly formed Muslim Mosque, Inc. Nevertheless, despite Mohammed’s occasional defection, he was constantly readmitted and allowed to teach from the Qur’an, due to his father’s belief that it was a ‘divine assignment’ given to his seventh child by the NOI’s founder, W.D. Fard. This ultimately led him to succeed his father as leader of the organization in 1975, moving the group to a form of racially inclusive Sunni Islam (Lee 1996; Curtis IV 2006; Dannin 2002; Mamiya 1982; Allen 2001).

8. At the 1995 Million Man March, whose message emphasized fatherhood and self-responsibility among Black men, Minister Louis Farrakhan’s son Mustapha, who is known for always standing beside his father as a key security officer, enthusiastically introduced him at the event (Million Man March 1995).

9. Luqman Abdullah was a Detroit-based African-American imam who was shot twenty times by the FBI during an October 2009 raid in which federal authorities alleged that he led a separatist, radical mosque, in addition to an operation connected with of stolen goods. Various activists, including Dawud Walid, the African-American executive director of the Detroit chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations questioned why the imam was handcuffed, despite having been killed instantly by the twenty shots. Abdullah’s stepson Omar Regan, an actor and comedian known for doubling Chris Tucker in Ratner’s Rush Hour 2 (2001) as well as writing, directing, and acting in the ‘halal comedy’ American Sharia (2015), has vocally advocated for justice on behalf of his deceased father. Like many older Muslim fathers, the legacy of Islam in the fight for Black rights was very important to Abdullah. For example, Regan referred to his father’s death as the ‘unfinished business’ of the FBI’s 1960s counterintelligence program targeting Black organizations, as Abdullah was a follower and advocate for the imprisoned former Black Panther leader Jamil al-Amin (formerly known as H. Rap Brown) (Kabir 2013, 96; Azhar 2010; Saulny 2009; Hussain 2015).

10. Groups of Black Sunni Muslims, such as the Dar ul-Islam movement attracted various ‘Black Power militants’ throughout the 1960s, as is seen in H. Rap Brown’s conversion to Islam in prison under Dar ul-Islam’s influential prison committee (Dannin 2002; Curtis 1994).