Ramadan: The African Spirit and Islam

The majority of people of African descent came to the western hemisphere by way of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. European nations such as France, Spain, England, Portugal and The Netherlands, and later the United States raided the African continent en-route to capturing over 100 million Africans for their labor in the creation of a financial base for European colonialism. In the looting of Africa Europeans transported millions of African Muslims to the Caribbean and the Americas. These Africans created unique communities that challenged the notion of human bondage and chattel slavery.

In nations such as Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica, and the United States, Muslim slaves fought constantly against the will of slave masters. They refused to accept European’s concept of Christianity; instead choosing to fight and die for manhood suffrage and liberty. For example, in Santo Domingo in 1522 Wolof Muslim slaves staged a revolt that nearly destroyed the state; in 1812 at Fort Negro in Pensacola, Florida a Muslim named Abraham led Blacks and Native Americans against the United States Army; in 1835 the Muslims in Bahia, Brazil massacre hundreds of slave owners while destroying plantations. Muslims throughout European colonies were known to be aggressive fighters for freedom and being uncontrollable and unbreakable. In the 16th and 17th centuries, for instance, African Muslim formed maroon or free communities in St. Kitts, Barbados, Antigua, and the Gullah Islands of South Carolina. Individually, tens of thousands of American African Muslims, such as Alex Haley’s character Kunta Kente in Roots, the African slave who refused to concede for the appeasement of white slaveholders; violently and nonviolently resisted the peculiar institution in the United States.

In spite of the dehumanizing actions of slavery and later racial discrimination that came at the end of the American Civil War Islam continued quietly in the fringe areas of a segregated and racially hostile America. By the turn of the 20th century thousands of Blacks practiced Islam or some variation of the religion. However, it would not be until 1913 that an organized national Muslim society would development.

In Newark, New Jersey Timothy Drew, later to be known as Noble Drew Ali established the Moorish Science Temple movement, a Muslim organization that introduced thousands of Black Americans to Islam. Commissioned by the Sultan of Morocco teach Islam Drew presented the building blocks of an Islamic culture to many African-Americans; that is, instructing his followers to learn about the Quran, facing east for prayer, providing a Islamic diet that restricted converts from eating pork and drinking alcoholic beverages and requiring members to fast during the holy month of Ramadan. However, due to white American prejudice towards African-Americans who adopted a religion and culture not sanctioned by the white society Drew’s group was targeted by local, state and federal agencies for destruction. By the mid-1920s the group’s 25,000 members had splintered into several organizations while their leader was allegedly murdered by state and federal officers in Chicago.

In 1926 Duse Muhammad Ali, friend and associate of Marcus Garvey who assisted the great Jamaican in forming the Universal Negro Improvement Association, an organization that claimed 10 million members; formed the Universal Islamic Society in Detroit, Michigan. The group like Ali’s organization connected the religion of Islam to African-American’s struggle for human rights. The UIS adding to Black Americans understanding of Islam taught their members how to prostrate and pray as traditional Muslims from the Middle East. In addition, they also observed Ramadan.

In 1930 the largest and best known of the Muslim groups in the 20th century formed; the Nation of Islam. The organization was founded by an eastern immigrant by the name Master Fard Muhammad also in Detroit. The group taught that African-Americans were Muslims by birth and that white society was heredity evil toward the Semitics (people of color) of the world. He instructed his people to practice a strict and pious lifestyle; that is, observing five prayers daily; prohibiting the eating of pork; the drinking alcoholic beverages, and smoking; accepting the Quran as the word of Allah (God) through his messenger—Prophet Muhammad of Saudi Arabia; and viewing Mecca as the Holy City of Islam. However, the government saw the NOI as a threat, like the other two groups. The Federal Bureau of Investigation referred to the Nation of Islam as an “evil voodoo cult that must be destroyed.” In response, Master Fard Muhammad taught that the educational system of the nation did not benefit African-Americans and that the United States will never accept them as equal partners in its culture and society. In 1933 Master Fard Muhammad vanished. However, in his absence came the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

Elijah Muhammad, a victim of racism and an observer of the lynching of one of his father’s church members in Georgia expanded the NOI from a regional group to an international organization. Muhammad instructed a discipline of complete obedience to Islam. That is, modest dress, pious lifestyle, and dietary rules. The Nation followed Ramadan to the letter. Under the leadership of many of its great leaders such as Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan, and Warith Deen Muhammad the organization had by 1975 over one million African-Americans observing Ramadan—fasting.

Today, through the efforts of current African-American Muslim organizations and leaders over four million Black American Muslims are fasting from July 20th to August 16th. In every town and city in the United States you can find devout Muslims of African descent. Thus, contrary to the mainstream media that paint Islam and Ramadan as an immigrant and new religion in the United States, Blacks as slaves came to the shores of the Americas and the Caribbean with Islam in their hearts and soul. Through the efforts of individuals like Noble Drew Ali and The Honorable Elijah Muhammad the words Islam and Muslim became permanent images of pride, strength, discipline and piety in Black America. Thus, as Muslims and non-Muslims let us celebrate and respect Ramadan as a religious practice, but also as an act a Black survival in America; the spirit of Africa and Islam.

The Truth Teller
Dr. Vibert White