صراط عشق صراط عشق
Since Floyd’s killing, Muslim Americans have mostly shown solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Mahmoud Abumayyaleh, the owner of Cup Foods, has said that the store will no longer call the police on customers. Nationally, there have been numerous statements from groups such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the American Muslim Institution.
A joint announcement by over 35 national Muslim civil rights and faith groups and more than 60 regional groups noted that Black people were “often marginalized” within the broader Muslim community. It continued: “And when they fall victim to police violence, non-Black Muslims are too often silent, which leads to complicity.”
There have been Muslims in America for almost 500 years. Estevanico the Moor was brought as a slave to what is now Florida in 1528 and is memorialized on the Texas African American history monument as the first African to enter Texas. At least 10% of the slaves brought from West Africa were Muslim, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture tells some of their stories as part of its collection.
Black Muslims played a crucial role in the U.S. civil rights movement. Even today, quotes and images of civil rights activist Malcolm X, who converted to Sunni Islam in 1964 after leaving the Nation of Islam, remain potent in the current protests. Meanwhile Muhammad Ali, who at one time was perhaps the most recognizable Muslim in the world, gained fame as much for his political stances as his boxing prowess. Ali led the way for other Muslim American athletes who have pushed for social change, including NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was involved in discussions by the Olympic Project for Human Rights for Black athletes to boycott the 1968 games.
And 20 years before Colin Kaepernick, NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the national anthem while playing for the Denver Nuggets because of his “Muslim conscience.” Polling shows many of these protests were greeted with disdain by the majority of white America. Today, at least 20% of Muslims in the U.S. are Black Americans. But starting from the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, there has been a growth in immigrant Muslims coming to America.
While increasing overall numbers of Muslims in U.S., immigration has created a dividing line in the American Muslim community – between Muslims with an American heritage that stretched back generations and newer arrivals. Immigrant Muslims were often assumed by American Muslims to know more about Islam as they came from Muslim majority countries, and so they were given more authority in Muslim organizations and as Islamic leaders.
They also built mosques that served their own ethnic communities, with immigrant Muslim communities often worshiping separately from Black American Muslims. There is also a split in the economic status of American Muslims. According to the Pew Forum, 24% of American Muslims have an annual income above US$100,000, while 40% have an income below $30,000. Many of those who are wealthy – like billionaire Shahid Khan, an immigrant from Pakistan who now owns the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars – are from immigrant Muslim communities.
