Conceptualizing the Transition of the Nation of Islam
By Tom Cugini
American University
Washington, DC

A few nervous peers through the window blinds seem to be the prescription of the day. People have been inundated with the 24-hour news cycle and the epileptic flashing of banners, alerting BREAKING NEWS to anyone in the vicinity of a television screen. Quick to edit and simplify, viewers are bombarded with the imminence of conflict with the “other,” be it someone of a different color, creed, or philosophy.

Even as the world grows more interconnected, enclaves of homogeneity still remain; a reality that is highlighting the cracks in the American “melting pot” cliché more than ever. There is only so much knowledge that can be gleaned from outside sources before an individual must reach across the partition, and greet the “other.”

Recently, I chose to challenge these boundaries and ingratiate myself into a community with which I had no familiarity. With the mentorship of an experienced diplomat and social anthropologist, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed led our Researching Islam class in which we were shown comprehensive research skills before entering the Muslim community. Had someone extracted their social understanding solely from newsreels and conversations from my hometown in suburban New Jersey, they would probably be surprised to learn that followers of Islam come from as many ethnicities and cultures as any religion in America. The community is often subject to the grand stroke of generalization, especially in the era of modern Middle Eastern conflicts, where terrorism is mischaracterized as an Islamic monopoly. My classmates and I chose to observe particular segments of the American Muslim community, a selection localized to converts to Islam, immigrant Muslims, and African American Muslims, each with a separate identity that found common ground in their shared faith.

I had chosen the latter group, in large part due to the misconceptions that I knew hung over the African American Muslim community. Cherry picking from what little I had retained over the years, gave rise to visions of crowds condemning “white devils” and Malcolm X wielding an M1 carbine at the window of his home. Is this the militant, aggressive group that I was supposed to observe? Preliminary independent research and class lectures had turned this concern on its face, as I was exposed to an in-depth look at African American Muslims, and its transition from the “white devil”-spouting rhetorical-powerhouse of the Nation of Islam, to the largely mainstream Sunni orthodox community. Without context, the infamous picture of Malcolm X looks antagonistically representative of the Nation of Islam’s aggression, whereas it is actually a glimpse at the personal cost that X had taken on as he challenged the overarching sentiments of the Nation. From that point, I decided to focus on the transition of the African American Muslim community.

Though the March chill seeped through the windows of Masjid Muhammad, the graciousness of our hosts was far from frigid. My research team and I had arrived to meet and interview the mosque’s congregants, an assignment that may have been more nerve-wracking had the director not made it a point to make us feel at home. Many of the interviewees were older, which coincidentally meant that they had joined the original Nation of Islam in its days of controversy. Today, the masjid follows the teachings of reformer W.D. Mohammed, an imam and leader responsible for pulling many NOI congregants towards Sunni orthodoxy. The ages of the interviewees ranged from 56-74, which meant they had perspectives from before and after the archetype shift in the African American Muslim community. I made sure to also interview younger respondents at American University to account for the higher median age represented at the mosque, and to get a look at whether the ideas of change were filtered down to the younger generations. The research yielded interesting results, especially in regards to how the Nation of Islam, and the African American Muslim community as a whole shifted the viewpoint away from racial prejudice and towards piety and reconciliation. The most influential factors were the leadership roles of Malcolm X and the aforementioned W.D. Mohammed, who had infused a purer sense of religion into the congregants, thus negating the need for vitriol as expressed by the Nation.

The experience was transformative as it allowed me to actualize research skills that go beyond pen and paper. Ethnographies provide a direction to gather primary resources from which to draw research conclusions, rather than hearsay and online databases. Viewpoints of African American Muslims from Masjid Muhammad and American University helped to build a consensus that would be near impossible to surmise from anything but the mouths of the community in question. Throughout this course, I visited a mosque for the first time and experienced the humble environment within its walls, an exercise that could help to counter skewed media narratives and personal ignorance that causes a spectrum of conflict in society. It all depends on the window with which the world is viewed, some peer with paranoid glances for the “other,” while some are forced to stand guard and protect their broadened horizons, as Malcolm did to the chagrin of the ignorant.

(Tom Cugini is an undergraduate student studying International Relations at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC)

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