Black Muslims: Being Dealt the Short End of the Stick
Being a Black Muslim comes with Racism, Islamaphobia, and not enough support from the Islamic community.
BY: KHALIL ADEN
Art by Daniel Gomes // THE UNDERGROUND
When I was seven years old, I entered the mosque for the first time. In my head, I wondered what the purpose of this place was, as it was nothing I’d ever seen before. As I held my mother’s hand, she introduced me to her friends in the mosque. Based on these interactions, it was safe to assume that this place was a social setting. My mom’s friends had their kids with them as well. That brought some joy since I wasn’t the only child there, I didn’t feel so out of place. We started running around the place causing a ruckus like kids do. But as soon as we all heard the call to prayer, the Adhan, all the kids said, “Oh it’s praying time.” Our mothers quickly came to collect us and then took us to the prayer hall. While we were told to pray with our parents, as expected, a bunch of the children began walking around in the middle of the prayer. It was my first time praying in a mosque and I just assumed that walking around mid-prayer and chasing one another was cool. Once the prayer finished, my mother quickly gave me the death stare. We all know the death stare I'm talking about. The type of death stare that hits you right in the chest and leaves you trembling.
When I walked over to my mom, her words stuck with me for the rest of my life. “Khalil, you can’t act like that in here, this is the House of Allah. You have to treat it with respect. Or else Allah won’t be happy.” It was a lesson that followed me into adulthood, as it’s one of the first lessons I ever learned about Islam. Back then I was just tagging along. But two years down the line, I would find myself entering the mosque with a purpose.
For the next five years, my mom enrolled me into Islamic studies, where I gained an understanding of what it means to be a Muslim. When I was younger I didn’t really understand why we’d go to the mosque, or why my mother and father would pray at home. Being taught the fundamentals of Islam helped me with my growth as a person. But around the same time that I was learning about Islamic culture, my older siblings had embraced Black culture which rubbed off on me.
Art by Daniel Gomes // THE UNDERGROUND
Not only was I being being introduced to the history of Islam, but I was also introduced to things such as BET. Black Entertainment Television was a channel that hosted a variety of shows pertaining to Hip-Hop, R&B, and occasionally Jazz. My parents were more intent on me being familiarized with Islam rather than listening to Hip-Hop music. So it was always a struggle trying not to get caught by my parents as a scolding would ensue.
Growing up, I was always recognized as just Black by my non-muslim peers since i didn’t wear any traditional clothing. It was much easier to deduce that a girl with a hijab was Muslim compared to me with my huge afro. Which made it a lot harder to convince other Muslims that I was one of them. Usually I would have to answer a question about the religion as if it was a password to be accepted into a secret society.
Art by Daniel Gomes // THE UNDERGROUND
Being the youngest in the family often means that when around older siblings and your parents, you become more accustomed to adult hobbies such as watching the evening news and historical documentaries. Within those mediums, I was witness to a lot of anti-Muslim and anti-Black sentiments. I was introduced to things such as 9/11, the Iraq war, the murders of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, Ferguson riots, etc. These are all emotional topics to consume and not necessarily the best things for kids to watch.
At the age of 12, seeing people that look like myself being treated inhumanely was disheartening to see.Being introduced to a world that doesn’t value you is life changing. It’s easy coming to the conclusion that if someone who looks like me and has the same values as me isn’t respected for who they are, it’s safe to assume that I will receive the same treatment. Which brings a lot of fear and self consciousness to someone who may not have had that before. Looking at how people view your identity in such a negative light makes a young kid fearful of growing up.
Living life as a Black Muslim means that not only do you deal with Islamophobia, but also the racial prejudice that comes with being Black. Like i mentioned, I’m not the most identifiable Muslim. I don’t face Islamophobia that often due the fact that you wouldn’t be able to tell that I was Muslim unless I told you. But when you’re close to your faith, as well as having people you care about being potential victims of hate crimes and hate speech, that issue will always be important to you. In the past we didn’t have access to as many hate crimes and hate speech as we do today with the Internet. If you were to see someone in the 90s being assaulted for their race or religion, someone would have to be driving by with a camcorder at the right time or a community would have to explode in anger for it to be on the news. Now, everyday it seems that I open my phone and see Black folks killed for nothing or racist tirades against Muslims.
An unfortunate part of being Black and Muslim, aside from the racial and religous discrimination, is that the issues of Black Muslims aren’t spoken about from members of the Islamic community. Movements such as Black Lives Matter isn’t seen as an issue that Muslim people are affected by. But BLM applies to Black Muslims, and that reason alone should be enough for the non Black-Identifying members of the Islamic community to care. Although Activist such as Linda Sasour, Palestinian-American-Muslim organizer & civil rights activist and Magari Aziza co-founder and Programming Director of Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative are apart of the small few who speak up in regards to these issues in the Islamic community. Speaking up against the issues that one portion of your community has to deal with needs to be normalized in order to see affective change.
Black Muslims aren’t only victim to racism from people outside of the Islamic community, as Black people, Muslim or non-Muslim, aren’t respected in Muslim countries such as Libya, Jordan, Kuwait, and Egypt. It's common to see Black culture being used as the punchline in comedy television shows, with Blackface also being used as the standard comedic tool in these shows. The colourism within these acts is evident within an anti-Black context.
But Blackface is the tip of the iceberg, as the slave-trade is very much alive in places like Libya. Immigrants migrating from countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan face risk of being kidnapped and sold into slavery when travelling through Libya to reach Europe. The nightmare of slavery ended for many Black Americans in 1865, but for many Africans immigrating to Europe, the fear of being captured and sold against their will in foreign lands is a risk they take when seeking freedom. But it's predominantly Africans who are being put into these camps and being sold for work. Hanan Salah, a Libya researcher with Human Rights Watch, stated that those who were African were more liable to be put to work than their Arab counterparts in the migrant camps situated in Libya.
In Islam, we call everyone who’s Muslim our Brother and Sister as a form of solidarity. That same solidarity should be expected when your Black Brother or Sister in Islam are being discriminated in the form of systemic racism. That same form of solidarity that we preach, we should act upon when we see members of our community dealing with issues such as police brutality, or the treatment of Black folks in Muslim countries, simply because its what we’re expected to do within Islam. You may not be involved in the things that are happening in Muslim countries. But standing by while others are being oppressed and humiliated is something we stand against in Islam. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once stated that you should “help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is an oppressed one.” People asked, “O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! It is all right to help him if he is oppressed, but how should we help him if he is an oppressor?” The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “By preventing him from oppressing others.”
