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A m e r i ca’sOther Muslims

While Louis Farrakhan captures headlines, the lesser-knownW. D. Mohammed has a large following among African-

American Muslims—and a warmer view of the United States.Can he help make America’s immigrant Muslims

more at home in their adopted country?

by Peter Skerry

On Labor Day weekend 2004, morethan a thousand African-American

men and women gathered at the Hyatt Re-gency in downtown Chicago for a Satur-day afternoon fashion show. Black womenof various shapes and sizes glided downthe runway in eye-catching African printsfashioned into stylish but loose-fittingdresses. There were even a few male mod-els, sporting similarly colorful tunics andleisure suits. The patter of the announcerswas accompanied by an African-Americanversion of Muzak—understated funkpunctuated with the occasional unobtru-sive rap number. Every so often audiencemembers were reminded to “write thosechecks and spend that money.”

The “head-wrap,” usually some kind ofturban, worn by every woman on the runwaywas a sign that this was no ordinary fashionshow, as was the way the clothes were de-scribed to the audience. Though the emceeoccasionally noted how a particular dress“accentuated” the figure of the modelsashaying down the runway, the most fre-quently heard word was “modest,” as in“This outfit would be good for a night on thetown when you want to look stylish a n dmodest” or “This is for the sister who wantsto be modest a n d strut her stuff.”

The fashion show had begun with areading from the Qur’an—in Arabic, by a

woman. Once again, highly unusual. Theoccasion was the annual convention ofImam Warith Deen (W. D.) Mohammed’sorganization, The Mosque Cares. Thethree-day event had begun the day before,Friday (J u m m a h), the Muslim day ofprayer, with a two-and-a-half-hour serviceattended by about 3,000 worshipers. Thesewere middle- to lower-middle-class hus-bands, wives, and children, a few of whomwere surely not Muslim. They were also,as Imam Mohammed later put it to me,“folks who want to get past resentment andwho want to be one with humanity.”

Again, the service was not typical ofMuslim prayer services around the world.There was little kneeling and prostration.Indeed, there was little actual praying, andnot much Arabic was spoken. (The over-whelming majority of those present wouldnot have understood a whole lot.) The ses-sion was taken up mostly with a ramblingbut low-key sermon (k h u t b a) by ImamMohammed, who emphasized the impor-tance of taking “conscious, rational re-sponsibility” for one’s self, toward the goalof taking advantage of the opportunitiesavailable in the United States. At the con-cluding session on Sunday afternoon, thedominant topics were community eco-nomic empowerment and Muslim educa-tion and schools.

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In the hotel exhibition hall, the confer-ence’s “Business Bazaar” was crammedwith booths staffed by African-Americanentrepreneurs selling vitamins, fruit cidersand specialty foods, skin care products,books and DVDs, and other items cateringto the needs of middle-class African-Amer-ican Muslims. In the background, sooth-ing R&B and pop standards were piped in,interrupted at one point by a live Muslimhip-hop performance.

In his k h u t b a, Imam Mohammed drewfrequently on his own life, including hisupbringing in the Nation of Islam by hisfather, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,whose formal title is routinely invoked bythe imam and his followers, always withthe utmost respect. What was n o t m e n-tioned all weekend, either by the imam orby any of the other African-AmericanMuslims attending, was the Patriot Act.

That may have been the most striking as-pect of the event. For at virtually any otherMuslim gathering these days, the Patriot Actis routinely and angrily denounced—for the

most part, inaccurately—as the basis for thedeportations, detentions, and profiling thathave frightened and outraged Muslims inthis country. The majority of Muslims in theUnited States are immigrants or the childrenof immigrants. Many of them are not citi-zens. All of them understandably feel vul-nerable and, indeed, targeted in this post-9/11 environment.

But not so vulnerable that immigrantMuslims pass up any opportunity to con-demn the Bush administration. Again, thecontrast with the African-American Mus-lims at the Hyatt Regency was stark. ImamMohammed d i d mention President Bushonce, in connection with the Iraq war. Hedid not offer enthusiastic support for thepresident, but he went out of his way not tocriticize him or his policies.

W. D. Mohammed took over the Na-t i o n of Islam—a curious amalgam

of freemasonry, Christianity, and Islamthat religion scholar C. Eric Lincoln oncedubbed a “proto-Islamic cult”—upon his

Calling himself “a new Muslim,” W. D. Mohammed, son of the Black Muslim leader Elijah Muham-mad, has quietly led his followers in unexpected directions since the death of his father in 1975.

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father’s death in 1975, and immediatelybrought its adherents to Sunni Islam. Notonly did the son change the name of theorganization, he transformed its ideology,eliminating its antiwhite racism and em-bracing the political institutions of theUnited States. And he did all this whilecontinuing to honor his father’s memory.

But times have changed, and whatmight once have seemed interesting

or important about W. D. Mohammed nowseems less so. What matters today is whetherhis version of Islam, clearly African-Ameri-can but also far closer to traditional Islamthan his father’s eccentric doctrine, willprove compatible with what immigrant

Muslims believe and practice. His opennessto American society, culture, and politicsmakes it difficult for immigrant Muslims,and indeed for some African-American Mus-lims, to embrace his teachings. Yet ImamMohammed’s efforts to ground his work inauthentically Arabic and Islamic sourcescause problems for those uncomfortableabout straying too far from their African-American roots. Meanwhile, America’s pow-erful social and cultural turbines are drawingimmigrant Muslims, and especially their chil-dren, into the American mainstream—some-times not obviously, usually not completely,and almost never painlessly. Gradually, thisprocess is transforming what it means to be aMuslim in America.

Muslims in America

>Peter Skerry, a former Wilson Center fellow, teaches political science at Boston College and is a nonresident senior fellowat the Brookings Institution. He is at work on a book titled Joining the Fray: The Political Future of Muslims in America.Devin Fernandes assisted in the research and preparation of this article.

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At the same time, post-9/11 political re-a lities impress upon immigrant Muslimleaders the need for role models and allies.African-American Muslims loom large insuch scenarios. And as the spiritual leaderof nearly three-fifths of the more than 300African-American mosques, so does W. D.Mohammed. Reliable numbers are hardto come by. By the most generous esti-mates, Mohammed’s following could notexceed 50,000. But no other African-American Muslim leader has nearly thatnumber. At 71, he has the bearing andreputation of a statesman. He is an es-teemed figure who, by remaining abovepetty personal conflicts and divisive polit-ical squabbles, has gained the respect notonly of African Americans of all faiths butof immigrant Muslims and their leaders.Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how

important a role—social, cul-tural, or political—he and hisfollowers will play in the un-folding drama.

Today there are between twoand three million Muslims

living in the United States. Mostof them—anywhere from two-thirds to four-fifths—are immi-grant-origin Muslims. Since 9/11these newcomers have felt un-der siege yet challenged to be-come more directly involved inAmerican society and politics.For potential allies and guidesthrough this unfamiliar terrain,they have been turning toAfrican-American Muslims.

But immigrant Muslimsthemselves hardly constitute acohesive political group. Al-though social and culturalchange and post-9/11 pressuresare bringing them together, theyremain divided along sectarian,linguistic, and national-origin

lines. More to the point, long-standing dif-ferences continue to divide immigrantMuslims from their African-Americancoreligionists. The same weekend that W.D. Mohammed’s convention was meetingin downtown Chicago, the Islamic Soci-ety of North America (ISNA), the largestimmigrant Muslim organization in Amer-ica, was welcoming more than 30,000 in-dividuals to its annual convention acrosstown at O’Hare Airport. (At the ISNA con-ference, President Bush and the PatriotAct were roundly denounced.) This wasnot the first time such a crosstown splithad occurred. On occasion, the two con-ventions have shared some speakers, includ-ing their leaders. But the organizations re-main distinct, with different constituencies,each worshiping Allah in its own way—andmostly in its own mosques.

The faithful listen as Imam Mo-hammed addresses the annualconvention of The Mosque Caresin Chicago earlier this year.

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Nor is W. D. Mohammed’s position un-challenged. Within his own highly decen-tralized organization, many imams ignorehis advice and follow their own paths.Among African Americans, Islam is frag-mented into more than a dozen sects, in-cluding several remnants still claiming themantle of the Nation of Islam. A few lead-ers have emerged as rivals to Imam Mo-hammed for media attention and African-American loyalties. Of these, the mostvisible is Minister Louis Farrakhan, whopicked up the reins (and the name) of theNation of Islam dropped by W. D. Mo-hammed, and who in recent years hasmoved the Nation closer to Sunni Islam.

Another important figure is Imam JamilAbdullah Al-Amin—the former civil rightsfirebrand and Black Panther H. RapBrown—who typifies those African-Ameri-can Muslims who want to practice a purer,more authentic version of Islam than thatespoused by Imam Mohammed, and whoare far more critical of American societythan he.

The individual and organizational rival-ries among these leaders are exacerbated bydaunting theological, ideological, and po-litical crosscurrents. Many African-Ameri-can Muslims, not just aging 1960s revolu-tionaries, complain that W. D. Mohammedand his adherents practice a form of Islamnot well grounded in knowledge of eitherArabic or the Islamic texts and commen-taries. Many take issue as well with ImamMohammed’s relatively uncritical embraceof American values and institutions. AsSherman Jackson, a professor of Arabic andIslamic Studies at the University of Michi-gan, has observed, Imam Mohammed iscriticized, and often dismissed, for practic-ing “nouveau Islamique. ”

In contrast to the mass of ordinary BlackMuslims isolated within the bronzed

ghetto created for them by his father, W. D.Mohammed was brought up in a cos-mopolitan environment. Travel abroadand his education in this country exposedhim to the languages, religions, and poli-tics of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Like hiscontemporary and sometime ally MalcolmX, Mohammed converted to Sunni Islam in

the 1960s. When he assumed leadershipof the Nation of Islam in 1975, it shouldnot have been a surprise that he immedi-ately opened the doors to the “white devils”and, according to Vassar College religionprofessor Lawrence Mamiya, declared that“there will be no such category as a whiteMuslim or a black Muslim. All will beMuslims. All children of God.” Of evengreater significance to Muslims, Mo-hammed rejected the highly unorthodoxdoctrine that his father’s teacher, WallaceD. Fard, was God incarnate, and that Eli-jah Muhammad was his prophet. Againcontradicting his father, Mohammed be-gan teaching the orthodox Muslim doc-trine that there is in fact life after death.

It was less predictable that W. D. Mo-hammed would have immediately disband-ed the Fruit of Islam, his father’s menacingpraetorian guard. (The young Mohammedhad served as a “Junior Fruit,” which, hetold the convention audience, was amonghis happiest memories.) Imam Mohammedalso drastically decentralized the hierarchybuilt up over decades by his father. The lega-cy of that restructuring endures today: Mo-hammed has little formal authority and notmuch control over the roughly 185 mosquesthat are affiliated with his organization—or,more accurately, his network.

Even more surprising, indeed para-doxical, was that W. D. Moham-

med’s move toward Sunni Islam also en-tailed significant movement towardmainstream America. Women were al-lowed to go out alone at night and were af-forded greater responsibilities in themosques. Imam Mohammed publicly en-dorsed the Equal Rights Amendment andrejected his father’s condemnation of civicengagement and allegiance to the U.S.government. Though he himself, as a con-scientious objector (in accordance withhis father’s teaching), had refused to enterthe military, Mohammed decreed thatsuch service was no longer forbidden. In-deed, within a few years he was lecturingat the Pentagon.

The imam also encouraged his follow-ers to vote and perform other civic duties.In the mosques (no longer known as “tem-

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Autumn 2005 2 1

ples”), the Nation of Islam’s flag was re-placed with the American flag, and stu-dents at affiliated schools were taught torecite the Pledge of Allegiance. The Amer-ican flag appeared on the cover of the or-ganization’s newspaper, where it can still befound today. As Mohammed told T h eJerusalem Post in the mid-1990s, “Weshould love America passionately now thatAmerica has changed so drastically withina relatively short period of time.”

Since 9/11, W. D. Mohammed’s fervorfor America has hardly waned. The

contrast with attitudes among immigrantMuslims is striking, and he highlighted it ina recent interview with me. We met in aspartan, slightly shabby, one-story brickbuilding on the outskirts of Chicago. Itseemed a place to meet a plumbing con-tractor, not a spiritual leader.

But this is a very down-to-earth, unas-suming man. The imam arrived in a late-model but nondescript SUV, accompa-nied only by his daughter—without themale entourage of assistants and body-guards that many such leaders have. Hewas well dressed but casual, and definite-ly not flashy, in a tailored suit and knit po-lo shirt. As he had reminded his audienceat the Hyatt Regency, he once worked as awelder and still considers himself “an or-dinary man, in fact a very ordinary man.”

Across a conference table crowded intoa back room, Imam Mohammed speakssoftly, affably. Echoing themes from theconvention, he emphasizes the impor-tance of “conscious beings” who seek “therational truth” and avoid sentimentalism,which he associates with Christianity.When pressed on this point, he wryly says,“Well, yes, I like my tomatoes firm!”

Even while embracing America and de-nouncing black racism and separatism, W.D. Mohammed has always been attentiveto group pride and race consciousness; attimes he has even appeared to espouseblack nationalism, though he has neveractually done so. One of his first officialacts upon succeeding his father was to re-name the Nation of Islam’s former Harlemtemple after Malcolm X. During the sameperiod, Imam Mohammed coined the

term “Bilalian” to refer to all black people,not just Black Muslims. This was an allu-sion to Bilal Ibn Rabah, an Ethiopianslave who had been brought to Arabia andlater became a confidant of the Prophetand then the first muezzin, the personwho calls believers to prayer. Bilal was alink not only to Islam but to Africa, at atime when black Americans began to referto themselves as African Americans.

The Nation of Islam’s old newspaper,Muhammad Speaks, was renamed The Bi-lalian News (it later became today’s M u s-lim Journal), and the mosque in south-central Los Angeles became the BilalIslamic Center, a name that has stuck. To-day, the term “Bilal” is much less invogue. Still, W. D. Mohammed continuesto appeal to black pride, particularly in thecontext of business development and com-munity empowerment. At the Chicagoconvention, he even argued that “yourheart is dead if you waste five gallons ofgas to drive to a white man’s store ratherthan shop within your own community.”Yet in the next breath he urged his audiencenot to “make a racial picture, but a humanpicture. If you establish yourself in a racialpicture first, you establish yourself am e s s . ”

Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic Stud-ies at the University of Kentucky who is him-self a Muslim and an African American, re-minds us that the relationship betweenIslam and their own racial and ethnic her-itage is a critical issue for African-AmericanMuslims—perhaps the critical issue:

African-American Muslims come toIslam carrying African-American andAmerican cultural experiences (fore-most the Black Church and thestreet), and the question arises: Howmuch of that unique African-American culture is to be leftb e h i n d ? . . . To what extent shouldAfrican-American Muslims follow thetraditional practices of the Muslimworld, which is the culture that immi-grant Muslims bear?

Group pride and race consciousness are def-initely part of the glue that binds W. D. Mo-

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hammed’s followers to him and to one an-other, but in his hands they are never ideo-logically charged. Advancing them has nev-er been the goal of the organization.

Despite the deference Imam Moham-med paid to group sensitivities, his reformswere not implemented without dissension.Many longtime adherents departed. Overthe years, there have been tensions be-tween the imam and the most prominent ofthese dissidents, Louis Farrakhan, but,true to form, Mohammed has avoided anypersonal criticism of Farrakhan. In a 1999interview with The Los Angeles Times’Teresa Watanabe, he acknowledged Far-rakhan’s “positives,” such as his urging“the poor, irresponsible black men . . . t oaccept responsibility for their families, toearn an honest income.” But he conclud-ed that Farrakhan’s perspective had be-come irrelevant:

The Nation was designed to attractpoor and hopeless blacks to come tosomething created for nobody butthem. But we live in new realitiesn ow. Blacks are being encouraged toaspire to the highest positions inAmerica now. Everything is open tous. There is very little place for theextreme idea of the Nation of Islam inAmerica today.

In February 2000, W. D. Mohammedand Louis Farrakhan publicly recon-

ciled at an event in Chicago. Also makingan unprecedented appearance with Far-rakhan was Kashmiri-born Sayyid Syeed,the secretary-general of ISNA. Both Mo-hammed and Syeed acknowledged Far-rakhan’s movement toward orthodoxy, in-cluding his observance of Ramadanaccording to the lunar calendar and hisrecognition of Friday prayer as the princi-pal religious gathering of the week. In-deed, at this session Farrakhan effectivelyrenounced the Nation of Islam’s basicteaching that Elijah Muhammad was aprophet by declaring that “we bear witnessthat there is no prophet after the prophetMohammed.” Most observers attributeFarrakhan’s rapprochement with Islam atleast in part to his bout with prostate can-

cer. But having survived that, Farrakhanhas never quite followed through, and theNation remains outside the broad um-brella of Islam.

Other differences between Minister Far-rakhan and Imam Mohammed remainvivid. Farrakhan has indulged in anti-Semi-tism; Imam Mohammed habitually points tohis conversations with prominent rabbis andJewish organizations (even though headlinessuch as “Ariel Sharon’s Government UsingHitler Tactics” appear in his Muslim Jour-n a l). The imam and his lieutenants alsoboast of his consultations with Vatican offi-cials and audiences with the pope, and theyhighlight his friendship with televangelistReverend Robert Schuller, who has spokenat the annual convention.

At the same time, Imam Mohammed ishardly reluctant to criticize Christianity,though he does so without a trace of sec-tarian venom. In his k h u t b a at the HyattRegency, he referred obliquely to Chris-tianity as “the old religion,” whose appealsto emotion were intended to “make youdocile and put you at the service of politi-cal rulers.” In contrast, he pointed out,“we don’t treat you like sheep or fish,” butfocus instead on “the conscious, rationalperson.” Yet in the same k h u t b a, Mo-hammed also reassured his listeners:“Many of you were Christian. . . . T h a t ’ snothing to be ashamed of. . . . It’s some-thing to be proud of.”

W. D. Mohammed’s approach to poli-tics offers another point of contrast withFarrakhan. As noted earlier, Mohammedhas urged his followers to get involved inpolitics. Farrakhan moved in the same di-rection with characteristic zeal by plungingheadlong into Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and1988 presidential campaigns. Imam Mo-hammed’s approach has been more dis-creet, which is undoubtedly why he op-posed Jackson’s candidacy. In 1976 heendorsed Jimmy Carter for president and in1992 supported George H. W. Bush. Butthough perceived as socially and political-ly conservative, he has avoided beingstrongly identified with any one politicalpersonality, party, or platform. For Mo-hammed, promoting individual responsi-bility and rebuilding communities, not

Muslims in America

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playing electoral politics, is what’s critical.While Farrakhan was courting contro-

versy and media attention with eventssuch as the Million Man March on Wash-ington in 1995, W. D. Mohammed kept alower profile, maintaining relationshipswith his imams and busying himself with anoverhaul of the curriculum of the Islamicelementary schools he had inherited fromhis father. In honor of his mother, thesewere renamed the Sister Clara Muham-mad Schools, and there are now about 35in operation. More recently, he has beenbuilding up a cooperative purchasing net-work that relies on local imams and theirmosques to purchase and distribute halalmeats and foods. The Collective Purchas-ing Conference may also be a way for Mo-hammed to exercise more authority overhis imams.

One reason W. D. Mohammed was ableto pursue such low-visibility, long-term in-stitution-building is that, at least until themid-1990s, he received support from Arabgovernments. Much as his father formedclose ties to Egyptian president Gamal Ab-del Nasser, Mohammed maintained cor-dial relations with Anwar el-Sadat. C. Er-ic Lincoln reports that the imam was theonly American observer invited to attendthe Tenth Annual Islamic Conference ofMinisters of Foreign Affairs in Fez, Mo-rocco, in May 1979. Around the sametime, he was named by Saudi Arabia andother Persian Gulf states “sole consultantand trustee” for the distribution of Islamicmissionary funds in the United States. Per-haps more critical to many Muslims inAmerica, he was given the responsibilityof certifying Americans who applied forSaudi visas to make the hajj to Mecca.

W. D. Mohammed’s ties to the Saudismerit particular attention. Saudis reportedlycontributed millions toward the construc-tion of the Bilal Islamic Center in Los An-geles. And in his interview with me, ImamMohammed acknowledged that for severalyears they gave him an annual payment ofabout $70,000. His relationship with theSaudi Arabian government was probablystrongest during the Gulf War. At the be-ginning of that conflict, according toGeorgetown University historian Yvonne

Haddad, the Saudi ambassador convened ameeting of American Muslim leaders. Inthat roomful of Saudi beneficiaries, W. D.Mohammed was the only one who did as hewas asked: He signed a document support-ing U.S. intervention in the region. All theothers refused, and their support from theSaudis soon ended. Imam Mohammed’sfunding continued for a few more years. Heindicated to me that it stopped sometime in1994, when he claims to have broken withthe Saudis. In an interview with The Los An-geles Times in 1999 he said:

I don’t receive any money now, but Ihave received some and I losti t . . . because I suspected some stringswere attached. I said I can’t acceptthis kind of relationship. They werechoosing my friends for me, too. Theenemy of the friends who were givingme money was supposed to be myenemy, too.

In the years since 9/11, it has been re-ported that the Bilal Center continues to re-ceive Saudi funding. If it does, the expla-nation may lie with the decentralizednature of Mohammed’s organization andhis limited control over imams in his net-work. The salient point here is thatthroughout the roughly 20-year periodwhen Imam Mohammed cooperated withthe Saudis, he effectively defied their reli-gious doctrine by placing himself and hisorganization squarely within the Ameri-can mainstream.

As that meeting with the Saudi am-bassador suggests, African-Ameri-

can Muslims tend to see the world verydifferently from their immigrant coreli-gionists. Relations between African-Amer-ican and immigrant Muslims are strainedat worst, wary at best. Aside from differ-ences of language, culture, and nationalorigin, tensions have long been fueled byclass disparities. Immigrant Muslims tendto be university educated and comfortablysituated, while African-American Muslimsare likely to be neither. Even W. D. Mo-hammed’s followers, who seem better offthan other African-American Muslims,

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barely have a foothold in the middle class.For immigrant Muslims, then, episodessuch as the meeting with the Saudi am-bassador are bound to fuel deep-seatedprejudices that African-American Muslimsare not reliable and independent actors.

A still greater issue for immigrant Mus-lims is their perception that African-Amer-ican Muslims lack a solid grounding inthe Arabic language and Islamic texts anddo not practice their faith rigorously.These suspicions are not completely un-founded. Ihsan Bagby and several col-leagues interviewed (before 9/11) leaders atmore than one-third of the 1,200 or soU.S. mosques.* The results confirm thatAfrican-American imams generally are lesslikely to have degrees from either secularor Islamic institutions than their immi-grant counterparts. Moreover, African-American imams are much more likely tobe working part-time or as volunteers.

Mosques affiliated with W. D. Mo-hammed seem particularly susceptible tothese shortcomings. Bagby’s data suggest, forexample, that imams associated with Mo-hammed have less formal Islamic educa-tion than other African-American imams,who tend to be educated outside the Unit-ed States. A similar lack of rigor is indi-cated by the informality of their worshipservices. Imam Mohammed is well versedin Arabic and the Islamic texts, but suchlearning was not much in evidence at theJummah service he led at the Chicagoconvention. This casual tone is even moreapparent at local mosques, where wor-shipers drift in late, talk during the service,and fail to sit and kneel in the tight, or-dered rows (“shoulder-to-shoulder, feet-to-feet” is the saying) that Muslims, as pre-occupied with correct practice as withcorrect belief, value highly. Even theimams complain about this. As an immi-grant Muslim activist sympathetic toImam Mohammed said to me, “Theirmosques feel like churches!”

Muslims in America

W. D. Mohammed is mindful of theproblem. In recent years, he has been urg-ing his imams to become better groundedin Islam and Arabic. But his decentralizedorganization has afforded him neither theauthority nor the resources to move hisunderpaid, mostly part-time imams towardthis goal. At the same time, his emphasis onIslamic rigor has bumped up against grouppride and been interpreted by many as arejection of African-American culture. Inthe late summer of 2003, these tensionsburst into the open when Mohammedpublicly criticized his imams for draggingtheir feet.

Tensions over religion clearly poisonpolitical relations between African-

American and immigrant Muslims. As Ab-dul Karim Hasan, imam at the Bilal Is-lamic Center, told The Los Angeles Times,“We share the faith with immigrant Mus-lims, but not much else. . . . They thinkwe don’t know as much about religion asthey do.” The low point was reached dur-ing the closing weeks of the 2000 presi-dential campaign, when immigrant Muslimorganizations, claiming to speak for allMuslim Americans, endorsed George W.Bush—without acknowledging African-American Muslim objections to that en-dorsement. Things did not improve muchafter 9/11, when immigrant Muslims ex-perienced what to them was Bush’s be-trayal, and many of their African-Ameri-can brothers and sisters could not resistsaying, “We told you so.”

I am not aware that W. D. Mohammedever expressed that sentiment. On the con-trary, it is likely that he too supportedBush in 2000, though it is characteristic ofthe man that I have not been able to veri-fy this. But in the post-9/11 context, whathas to frustrate, even anger, immigrantMuslims is Imam Mohammed’s refusal tocriticize either the Patriot Act or the pres-ident’s Iraq policies. More to the point,there has long been a subtle distance thatMohammed puts between himself and hisimmigrant brothers and sisters. Indeed, hewas voicing concerns about them long be-fore 9/11. In 1997 he told The San JoseMercury News, “I am a new Muslim. I

*The Mosque Study Project 2000, part of a comprehen-sive Hartford Seminary study of religious congregations, isthe only such survey of mosques in America. It wascosponsored by W. D. Mohammed, ISNA, the IslamicCouncil of North America, and the Council on Amer-ican-Islamic Relations.

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don’t quite identify with the thinking ofthe Islamic world. I identify with the be-liefs of the Islamic world, but not neces-sarily with the thinking of most of the voic-es I’m hearing.” More recently, in myinterview with him, he related that, de-spite warm personal relations with some oftheir leaders, he was uneasy with immi-grant Muslims and concerned that theywere not entirely friendly toward the Unit-ed States. As he put it, “I’m not comfort-

able with some of their friends.”

There a r e African-American Muslimswho express fewer complaints about

immigrant Muslims. Scattered among the44 percent of predominantly African-American mosques n o t affiliated with W.D. Mohammed’s organization, they en-compass many different sectarian tenden-cies and do not constitute a cohesivegroup. But they do share a longstanding

W. D. Mohammed (left) of The Mosque Cares and the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan p u b-licly reconciled five years ago, after Farrakhan’s pledge to accept more orthodox Islamic practices.

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orientation, going back to the 1930s and1940s, toward Sunni Islam. They havetherefore been designated “historicallySunni African-American Muslims”HSAAM, for short—by Professor Bagby.As African Americans, these particularMuslims tend to make Islam the basis of areformulated critique—even a condem-nation—of the American mainstream.One of the most visible leaders in this dis-parate group is Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown. Al-Amin, whose Atlanta-based organizationis called the National Community, con-verted to Islam while in jail during the1970s. He is now back in prison, after be-ing convicted in February 2002 of killinga policeman.

Imam Al-Amin and other HSAAMMuslims do not necessarily call for the vi-olent overthrow of the U.S. government.Rather, they seek to withdraw from whatthey regard as a corrupt, immoral societyand build separate institutions and com-munities as defenses against it. For suchMuslims, whether African-American ornot, this goal has meant a rejection of in-volvement in American politics—a posi-tion that has found support among theSaudis. In the words of Steven Barboza,an American journalist who has writtenabout his own conversion to Islam,“While H. Rap Brown would have en-joined listeners to bear and tear down,Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin says disciplineyourselves through prayer, fasting, charity,and steadfastness, so that you will be or-ganized and prepared when Allah tearsthe system down.”

Despite (some would say because of)his radical views and relatively

small following, Imam Al-Amin has beenrecognized, even championed, by immi-grant Muslim leaders and organizations.His perspective is broadly typical ofHSAAM Muslims, whose views in somerespects resemble those of immigrantMuslims more than they do those of W. D.Mohammed and his followers. This canbe stated with some confidence, thanksagain to Professor Bagby’s Mosque StudyProject 2000. His data indicate that three-

fourths of all predominantly African-American mosques have been foundedsince 1970; their number continues to in-crease, though not so fast as the numberof immigrant mosques. And at least sincethe 1980s, the number of HSAAMmosques has increased faster than thenumber of W. D. Mohammed mosques.

HSAAM mosques are also muchstricter and more literal than W. D. Mo-hammed affiliates in interpreting theQur’an. This is signaled by the mosques’treatment of women. Bagby’s data indi-cate that somewhat greater numbers ofwomen are involved in W. D. Moham-med mosques than in HSAAM or immi-grant mosques. Only 16 percent of W. D.Mohammed mosques make women praybehind a curtain or in another room,while 45 percent of HSAAM mosques—and 81 percent of immigrant mosques—do. (That fashion show at the Chicagoconvention would definitely not go overwell with these other Muslims.) Finally,there is the question of whether Muslimwomen can serve on a mosque’s govern-ing board. Ninety-three percent of W. D.Mohammed affiliates allow women ontheir boards, as compared with only 60percent of HSAAM mosques and 66 per-cent of immigrant mosques.

As for the ever-present pull of grouppride and race consciousness, the differ-ences between these two groups are no-table. Asked how well they try to preservetheir ethnic or national heritage, 29 per-cent of W. D. Mohammed affiliates said“very well,” while only six percent ofHSAAM mosques did. This is to be ex-pected, since HSAAM mosques are ori-ented more toward traditional Islam,which de-emphasizes racial and ethnicdifferences in favor of the u m m a— t h eworldwide community of all Muslims.

From the perspective of the non-Muslimmajority, perhaps the most striking diver-gence between these two groups of African-American Muslims concerns how open theyare to American society. Bagby’s data indi-cate that HSAAM Muslims are much morecritical of America than are the followers ofW. D. Mohammed. Ninety-three percent ofhis affiliates strongly agree that Muslims

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should be involved in American society,while only 49 percent of HSAAM mosquesdo. Even more striking is the divergence ofviews about involvement in American poli-tics: 90 percent of W. D. Mohammedmosques—but only 37 percent of HSAAMmosques—strongly agree that Muslimsshould participate in the political process.And while 33 percent of W. D. Mohammedmosques believe that America is hostile toIslam, fully 74 percent of HSAAM mosquesdo. Finally, and most compellingly, the da-ta indicate that only 18 percent of W. D.Mohammed affiliates and 24 percent of im-migrant mosques strongly agree that “Amer-ica is an immoral, corrupt society.” The fig-ure for HSAAM mosques is 66 percent.

The irony is that W. D. Mohammedand his followers are more open to

American society but also more intent onholding on to their African-American her-itage than their HSAAM brothers and sis-ters. As Bagby reminds us, the pull ofblack culture and group identity is a factof life for most African Americans. Theirculture and group identity are, in fact,constitutive of their identity as Americans.A leader such as Imam Mohammed is notlikely to ignore this, but neither will a rivalsuch as Farrakhan let him forget it.

Of course, such particularistic tenden-cies do not go unchallenged in today’sworld. Thanks to the media, jet travel,Arab petrodollars, and immigration, theglobalized reality of Islam has had a pow-erful influence on W. D. Mohammed,Louis Farrakhan, and HSAAM Muslims—just as it did on Elijah Muhammad andMalcolm X before them. Among AfricanAmericans, globalization has made it dif-ficult to sustain deviant or cultish versionsof Islam—but clearly, not versions that areimplacably hostile to America. Indeed,these same globalizing forces have con-tributed to the legitimacy and influence ofHSAAM Muslims. Among these AfricanAmericans at least, black nationalist andseparatist impulses have been sublimatedinto a new, Third World ideology. Forthem, the test of authenticity is no longerblackness but “Islamicity.”

Immigrant Muslim leaders would like

all these differences somehow to getblurred. They are struggling to overcome di-visions not only among themselves butamong African-American Muslims andproto-Muslims such as Farrakhan. Ofcourse, the principal challenge is to bringAfrican-American Muslims generally to-gether with immigrant Muslims. Unity ofthat sort appeals to Muslims normativelyas a step toward realizing the u m m a. But itis also obviously in the interest of immi-grant Muslim leaders, who are struggling toprotect themselves and forge alliances inthe wake of 9/11.

Such strategic calculations are morecomplicated for African-American Muslimleaders. For some, Islam is just a newplatform from which to condemn theUnited States, much as it is for someimmigrant Muslims. Yet for those suchas W. D. Mohammed, Islam has actuallybeen the way back to the American main-stream. This is undoubtedly why, even ashe has worked to bring his followers closerto Islam, Imam Mohammed has distancedhimself from immigrant Muslims. Hisimams seem to get that point, at least. Onceagain, Imam Hasan of the Bilal Center isobligingly blunt: “For African-AmericanMuslims, the priorities are economic jus-tice, education, and service to humanity atthe street level in our country. We don’tmake decisions based on what is good forPakistan, Afghanistan, or the Middle East.”

It would not be easy, under any cir-cumstances, for any one individual to ne-gotiate all these crosscurrents. For W. D.Mohammed, these challenges arise just ashis own organization struggles to maintainits cohesion and membership. But if theexample of Imam Mohammed and hisfollowers demonstrates anything, it isAmerican society’s vitality and its capacityto absorb and adapt. In the midst ofthe civil rights struggles of the 1950s and1960s, who would have dared anticipatethe gains, however incomplete, thathave been made? Certainly no one wouldhave foreseen that a generation later, theson of the leader of a bizarre, racist cultwould offer Americans hope, and evensome help, in the face of daunting newchallenges. ❏