Bismillah, FYI
Peace, Curtis Sharif
Houston, Texas
Erooth Mohamed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Cities see rise in black Muslims in
wake of 9/11
Religious leaders report growth in numbers in major American cities
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17722665/
By Ramit Plushnick-Masti - Updated: 12:29 a.m. ET March 23, 2007
Muslim men gather at Masjid al-Mumin mosque for Friday prayers in
Pittsburgh on March 9. Following what seems to be a trend in cities nationwide,
religious leaders in that city and others have indicated an increase in black
conversions to Sunni Islam since Sept. 11.
View related photos
PITTSBURGH - Allahu Akbar, the Muslim call for prayer, rings out on a recent
Friday and a group of black men and women gather to celebrate the Islamic day
of rest.
The wooden house in Pittsburgh's rundown Homewood neighborhood looks like any
other on the block. But the sign at the door, Masjid Mumin, and the rows of
shoes lined up inside on gray, plastic shelves hint of the brand of Islam its
members practice.
The mosque is one of seven in Pittsburgh, home to a vibrant community of about
8,000 to 10,000 Muslims some 30 percent of them black.
Following what appears to be a trend in cities nationwide, religious leaders
in Pittsburgh say there has been a rise in black conversions to Islam since the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
No national surveys have been taken to confirm the increase, but Islamic
religious leaders in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit have also reported growth,
said Lawrence Mamiya, a professor of religion and Africana studies at New
York's Vassar College. Experts estimate that 30 percent of the 6 to 7 million
Muslims in the U.S. are black, with only South Asians making up a larger
number at 33 percent.
The Sept. 11 attacks have cut both ways, positively and negatively, Mamiya
said.
Accent on the positive
Richard Turner, coordinator of the African-American studies program and an
expert on Islam among blacks at the University of Iowa, said since Sept. 11,
Muslims have been attempting to disseminate positive information about the
religion, so the obvious outcome of that would be more conversions.
Sunni Islam is the world's most prominent branch of Islam. The Nation of Islam
and the Moorish Science Temple, other Muslim groups that attract many blacks,
believe in prophets after Muhammad, making them anathema to Sunni Islam.
Rashad Byrdsong, an elder in Pittsburgh's black Muslim community, hopes the
rise in interest in Islam will help the Mumin Mosque collect money to expand
their small house of worship into a larger community gathering place.
The new mosque, still in the planning stages, will look more like a community
center than a traditional minaret-topped Muslim place of worship found in the
Arab world.
The expanded Homewood mosque will have a daycare facility, a re-entry program
for released inmates, a health clinic and a program for entrepreneurs, features
that are in great need in the downtrodden neighborhood.
First, the spiritual aspects, the dawa, but also basic, physical, fundamental
needs, Byrdsong said.
Building mosque 'a solid goal'
In the fourth year of its seven-year expansion plan, Pittsburgh's tight-knit
Muslim community has raised much of the $1.5 million needed in the project's
first phase through book sales, telephone fundraisers, auctions and banquets.
It has purchased all but two lots it will need, and already has the sketches
for the future mosque complex.
Building the mosque has always been a goal, idea, vision, said Yusef Ali,
63, emir of the Mumin Mosque. But as a community grows ... it's (become) a
solid goal with strategic objectives.
A growing number of Muslims in America, especially blacks, are building
mosques that offer a variety of community services, partly because the federal
and state governments do not answer to many of their social needs, Islamic
experts say.
These complexes take the religion back to its roots before the modern-day
state began providing services to the population. What you have here is the
creation of a true American Islam, said Edward Curtis, a religious studies
professor who specializes in African-American Islam at IUPUI. Islam has been a
part of this country from its beginning, and the forms of Islam that are
successful here are indigenous forms.
Homewood as model
The Homewood mosque, though unique, follows a model similar to other black
mosques in the United States, Mamiya said.
In Harlem, the Malcolm Shabazz Mosque has built apartment buildings and
townhouses, offers social services and even owns a sanitation company used to
provide jobs to former prisoners, Mamiya said.
The African-American mosque has made itself different in this way from other
mosques around the world, Mamiya said. Religious institutions in the black
community have always been their strongest institutions and have always done
more than religious functions.
