2. African Americans are the most underrepresented of all groups at ISNA. ... Given that African-Americans make up the single largest segment of American Muslims, the fact that they don’t have a sizable stake raises a lot of questions about the validity of ISNA as an American Muslim organization.
African Americans may not be represented in large numbers at the ISNA convention because W.D. Muhammad traditionally holds his convention on the same week-end as the ISNA convention. W.D. Muhammad’s organization is currently called The Mosque Cares (formerly the Muslim American Society). I wish that both conventions could be combined, and know that over the years there have been many discussions by the leadership of both organizations about how this could be brought about. I also know that Abdul Malik Mujahid has worked for many years with the leadership of both of these organizations to try to make such a joint convention happen. At least part of the reason that this hasn’t yet happened has to do with cultural differences particularly between immigrant and native-born Muslims (whether African American or Caucasian, or second or third generation Muslims).
However, although we still have not reached the “ideal” situation of having joint conventions, there was definitely interaction. W.D. Muhammad (who is an alumnus of ISNA’s Board of Trustees) was part of the Press Conference that met before the first session of the conventions. Imam WD Muhammad formally unveiled the special issue of ISNA’s Islamic Horizons magazine dedicated to the contribution of African-Americans to Islam in America.
9-12 The information above was from a pre-convention news release. I spoke with Shaikh M. Nur Abdullah, President of ISNA today and he informed me that although Imam Muhammad was invited to the press conference and had given a positive response, at the last minute he was unable to attend.”
While these conventions are held in separate venues they are unified in spirit and in their desire to foster a feeling of community among all American Muslims. As a result, attendees from one conference can attend the other without having to pay additional fees. A shuttle service was planned to be sponsored by The Council of Islamic Organizations and called “The Unity Bus”. The Council wanted to sponsor the Unity Bus as part of an effort to help bring together the different Muslim communities that converge in Chicago for the two separate conventions every September. However, this was cancelled at the last minute because approval was not received from W.D. Muhammad’s organization.
At one point I was walking through the ISNA bazaar and heard a Native Deen’s rap cd being played in the bazaar area which attracted my attention. I was able to purchase a CD for one of my son’s and even get it signed by one of the musicians. This booth featuring American rap music would not have been possible at an ISNA convention a few years ago. It is a small sign of movement in the direction of overcoming cultural prejudices.
My husband and I attended both conventions and were made to feel welcome at both. It would be wonderful if some day these conventions could come together, but there was much more awareness this year than in the past. The only suggestion I have is that this information should have been available in the printed program for the ISNA convention.
There is a problem in the American Muslim community of sectarianism in many forms including racism. On TAM, we have discussed this problem (type racism into TAM search engine), and this was one of the main issues discussed at the 1993 First North American Muslim Pow Wow in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Changing the mind set of the community will need to be done by American Muslim community activists from the bottom up, as the attitudes of the national organizations are reflective of the attitudes of their membership.
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/featu...
Posted By: Steve Williams
Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 at 1:37PM
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