African-American Muslim Intellectual Thought

Abstract

This article discusses African-American Muslim intellectual thought, its invisibility in general society, its range, and its multiple strands. The author argues that Black Muslim intellectual thought is a rich tapestry of traditions dating to the first African slaves that has been systematically marginalized and misunderstood by scholars of the African American religious experience.

Keywords:

• African American
• identity
• intellectulal
• Muslim

Notes

Sherman A. Jackson. Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 18.

Several extremely popular ministers, Fredrick Price, T.D. Jakes, and O'Neal Dozier, have painted Islam and the Qur'an as evil and the practice of Islam cultish.

See Paul Alvaro, Indiculus Luminossus, quoted in R.W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (London, 1962), p. 12; The Comedy of Dante Aligheri, Cantica I: Hell, trans. Dorothy Sayers (London, 1949), Canto XXVIII: 22–27, p. 22 as examples. Recently Pope Benedict in a lecture immediately recalled a fourteenth century text that recalled the diatribes against Islam. The choice of the text is still reverberating throughout Europe and America.

The focus on African-American Muslims has begun in earnest with the publication of A Special Report: Out of the Shadows: Getting ahead of Prisoner Radicalization produced by Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute and The University of Virginia Critical Incident Analysis Group, October 2006.

See the following texts for examples Dennis Walker, Islam and the search for African-American Nationhood (Atlanta, GA: Calrity Press, 2005); Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Engaged Surrender (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).

Khaled Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God's Name (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001), p. 9.

Ibid.