Expanding Horizons for American Muslims

By Greg Noakes

As the North American Muslim community grows and matures, its members are beginning to look beyond their traditional concerns to address a whole new set of issues. For instance, at last summer's annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), presentations were not limited to discussions of the Qur'an, religious teachings and spreading the message of Islam, but also included workshops on media relations, conflict resolution and improving writing skills. American Muslims are beginning to understand that their potential to spark change in this society is largely untapped. Realization of that potential, many say, represents the next phase of Islamic work in America.

The American Muslim community is far from monolithic.

Islam has deep roots in American soil, although nearly all American Muslim institutions are less than four decades old. Some historians believe Muslim traders and explorers may have arrived in the Americas before Columbus. There is compelling evidence that a fifth of the slaves brought to the Western Hemisphere from Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries were Muslims. Furthermore, immigration from the Islamic world was continuous but gradual up to the middle of this century, yet there were very few American Muslim organizations above the local level.

This began to change in the 1960s. Growing numbers of Muslim students and young professionals began to arrive in the U.S. to pursue educational or occupational opportunities. The Muslim Students' Association was founded in 1963 to provide these new arrivals with an institutional support network. Other organizations followed, each with different mission statements and often different regional, linguistic and ethnic constituencies. Arab-American Muslims often gravitated toward one group and Indo-Pakistani immigrants to another, for example.

At roughly the same time that immigrant Muslims were beginning to organize themselves nationally, African American converts began to swell the ranks of Islam in America. Many originally came to Islam through the old Black nationalist Nation of Islam led by Elijah Muhammad. Most of them then followed his son, Warith al-Din, into "orthodox" Sunni Islam in the mid-1970s.

Other African Americans converted directly to mainstream Islam, increasing the proportion of African Americans in the American Muslim community to an estimated level of 46 percent. Now conversions among whites, Hispanics and Native Americans are growing, adding new ingredients to the American Muslim pot.

Building a Community

The period of growth from the 1960s into the 1980s was above all a time for community building. Local, regional and national organizations focused their efforts on the construction of Islamic institutions such as mosques, schools, research institutes, media outlets, and businesses ranging from restaurants and import-export companies to grocery stores and printing-houses. During this period, most American Muslims concentrated on building from scratch their own local and national groups and organizations, rather than looking outward to the larger society.

One of the most important results of this inward orientation was heightened contact between indigenous and immigrant American Muslims. Local Islamic communities were increasingly integrated, as were a number of larger organizations. Indigenous Muslim leaders like W.D. Muhammad and Imam Jamil Al-Amin began working more closely with predominantly immigrant groups like the Islamic Society of North America and ICNA. Although the past decade has seen remarkable progress, few American Muslims would proclaim themselves satisfied with the current level of exchange, dialogue and integration between the indigenous and immigrant communities.

Today, although there are still exciting efforts to build up new Muslim communities in the U.S. and Canada, the "mosque-building phase" of North American Islam is largely complete. Attitudes are changing as well. Immigrant Muslims who originally planned to stay only long enough to complete their higher education find themselves still living in the U.S. after 30 years. The old dream of returning home has been replaced by the realization that they are home in the U.S. Many have made successful careers for themselves, and are now in a position to give back to the community either financially or through their particular expertise and work experience. African-American Muslims also are better established professionally and financially, and have laid a firm institutional foundation. In short, American Muslims of all backgrounds now find themselves ready to expand their horizons, tackling larger issues and striving to make a difference within American and Canadian societies at large.

New Concerns

What new concerns are these Muslims addressing? They run the gamut of national and international affairs. Many Muslims, both indigenous and immigrant, are actively involved in supporting their Muslim brothers and sisters in well-known hot spots like Palestine, Bosnia, Kashmir, Chechnya and Somalia, as well as less publicized Muslim communities in places from Burma and China's Sinkiang province to South Africa and Latin America. In some cases this means financial support given individually or through a growing number of American-Muslim humanitarian organizations, while in others the support comes in the field of political action, educational efforts or technical expertise.

Domestic issues also are rising on the American Muslim political agenda. Like all of their fellow citizens, American Muslims are fundamentally affected by health care reform, changes in affirmative action, gun control, the war on drugs, the abortion issue, anti-terrorism legislation and rising crime rates. Because American Muslim organizations only now are turning their attention to these issues, organized American Muslim participation in these debates still is in its infancy. However, as both Muslim leaders and their grassroots constituents become better acquainted with both the issues and the political tactics needed to make their voices heard, American Muslims are likely to become increasingly important players in such domestic policy debates.

The American Muslim community is far from monolithic, however. There are differences of opinion at all levels over the necessity and desirability of building and participating in broad-based coalitions on various issues. Some believe American Muslims must stand on their own two feet, working independently to preserve their Muslim identity and outlook, while others argue that without the ability to call on like-minded groups from other constituencies, American Muslims will have little practical impact on American politics and thus American policy. A minority believe that any participation in American political life is wrong, since it is not an Islamic system and could divide the American Muslim community over a variety of issues. Still, most Muslims in the U.S. and Canada feel that they can make a positive difference in their larger community and that since Islam is concerned with actions and not simply words, they indeed have an obligation to get involved.

Significant challenges remain to be overcome. Within the Muslim community, most would agree that there needs to be greater coordination between the various Islamic groups. Funding and finances are constant problems for nearly all Muslim organizations, hampering their ability to mount short-term efforts and to engage in long-term planning. Some observers point to a need for an improvement in both the quality and quantity of intellectual efforts, and a number of fledgling Muslim think tanks such as the Minaret of Freedom Institute in Bethesda, MD are beginning to emerge. Finally, there is a need for an increased awareness among American Muslims not just about Islam, but also about what used to be called "civics"—the way American society and government function.

Other challenges come from outside the Muslim fold. First and foremost the community must rectify the serious image problem which afflicts Islam and Muslims in North America. Negative perceptions are based on misunderstanding, misinformation and ignorance, and should be easily rectified by an increased understanding of Islam on the part of ordinary Americans. The problem is that these perceptions also are deeply ingrained and constantly reinforced through the news and entertainment media, meaning that the Muslims have their work cut out for them.

As part of that task, American Muslims must make it known that they are as concerned about pressing domestic issues as any other Americans, and that they expect to take an active role in the national debate. As more and more politicians and activists realize that Muslims in this country increasingly are a political, economic and demographic force with which to be reckoned, this task may be made easier. Already groups like the American Muslim Council, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee are becoming more visible in the political debate on a number of issues ranging from federal budget cuts to civil rights and government regulation of genetic engineering.

Conditions are ripe: the number of American and Canadian Muslims is rising steadily, as are educational and economic levels within the community; a broad-based institutional framework is in place; there are a number of talented and energetic Muslim leaders and thinkers across North America; and the rising generation of young American Muslims seems destined not only to consolidate the gains their elders have made, but to extend the community's frontiers. Whether or not the Muslims capitalize upon these factors is up to the Muslims themselves. As the Qur'an says, "Verily God does not change the condition of a people until they change themselves."

Greg Noakes, an American Muslim, is a former news editor of the Washington Report.