Muslim & Black, In America | New Haven Independent:
What does it mean to be a African-American Muslim?
It’s estimated that between 5 and 12 million Muslims live in The U.S. in the U.S. About one-third of them are black. And yet, to Mubarakah Ibrahim, it still seems that black Muslims are put too quickly into a stereotypical box — or that ignorance reigns around the intersection of their race and religion.
No more, Ibrahim says. She called upon Donna Auston, PhD candidate at Rutgers University and progenitor of the hashtag #BlackMuslimRamadan, to give listeners a history lesson in Islam in America, and the history of black muslims in particular. The conversation took place on Ibrahim’s WNHH radio’s “Mornings with Mubarakah.”
“There are interconnections, there are overlaps and there are intersections,” Auston said. “There’s a diasporic element ... I think it’s important to bring that in. For me — my being black included growing up in the church, and all of that, I bring to Islam. I didn’t let that go because I changed my theology. I bring that to my interpretation of the Qu’ran, and I’m unapologetic about that. I started #BlackMuslimRamadan to highlight the way we bring out blackness into Islam ... For me it’s a beautiful amalgamation of all of the components of who I am.”
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