Islam in America: Problems of Legacy, Identity, Cooperation, and Conflict among African American and Immigrant Muslims

Abstract

Let me begin by acknowledging that my primary area of research over the past six years has focused on African American Muslim movements. I began the project on a Lilly funded national research project, Islam in the African American Experience, working with Professor C. Eric Lincoln of Duke University before his untimely death in May 2000 and Dr. Ihsan Bagby of Shaw University. Most of the research for this paper is derived from that project, which reflected Eric Lincoln’s deep abiding interest in African American Muslims from the Nation of Islam and Sunni Muslims. I have also included some data on immigrant Muslims because they are very much a part of the contemporary picture of Islam in America. The data on immigrant Muslims are from a telephone survey conducted by Dr. Ihsan Bagby, who was then the director of the Islamic Resource Center in Orange County, California. Bagby’s study, which was done in 1999, covered 1,500 Muslim masjids across the country, including 350 predominantly African American masjids. My own study includes face-to-face surveys and interviews with the imams of 130 African American masjids nationwide, which represents about one-third to 40 percent of total African American masjids. We also did a survey of some 400 African American congregational participants of selected masjids.¹