Did she call Imam W. D. Mohammed a feminist?

I don't call Imam W. D. Mohammed a feminist in my new book, but I did say to an audience at my mosque in Atlanta that when I studied Imam W. D. Mohammed's writings on women, I was stunned by the extent to which they sounded, "dare I say it," feminist.

Imam W. D. Mohammed would not have claimed the label--gender equality was not his guiding principle--but empowering and elevating women was central to his work in transitioning the "Black Muslims" from the Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam. He certainly took on the fight for gender justice and it was at the center, not the periphery, of his work. In a 1977 issue of the Bilalian News, Imam Mohammed stated,

               "Women's lib' is not an accident. It is a divine thing but women have to rise above the 'lib' to understand that we want more than just lip. We want mothers who have mothers' hearts. We want to hear some hearts, some mother sentiments."

In light of other statements by Imam Mohammed on gender and women, which I explore extensively in the book, I interpret the imam here as encouraging women to base their demand for rights and opportunities not on popular notions of women's liberation but on their own experiences as mothers or potential mothers.

As I argue in the book, in no way was he reducing women's experiences to motherhood or encouraging women to stay at home. The increase in women's work and education outside the home was a hallmark of the transition and the imam's leadership.

Instead, Imam Mohammed was saying that the physiological capacity to carry and nurture a human being (a mind) is a honorable commitment and undertaking unique to women. He focused on mothering to correct religious interpretations, especially those of the Bible, that vilified women and this capacity. The capacity to mother, even for women who have not had the experience, offers an immense contribution to the intellectual and moral character of a society.  

To the mosque audience, I did not attempt to provide an extensive analysis of Imam Mohammed's feminist consciousness but invited them to read the book. A question from the audience, however, reminded me that many do not feel comfortable using the word feminism in sacred space, let alone associating it with Imam W. D. Mohammed. I understand the sentiment given the tendency to see feminism in very limited ways. Indeed popular notions of feminism present a critique of religion, and Islam in particular, as inherently oppressive to women.

It is for this reason that I like the modifier "Islamic" to designate a form of feminist thought and practice derived within an Islamic framework. As I state in my interview "Islamic Women, Islamic Feminism,"

          "Muslim women do not have to look beyond their faith tradition to acquire gender consciousness and to fight against gender injustices.  The Qur'an and the precedent of the Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him, inspire and inform their feminist practice. This, however, does not mean that other forms of feminism do not influence Muslim women's feminism. Rather, feminisms intersect to influence Muslim women's [consciousness] and activism." 

In my writings, I also use womanist, or black feminist, thought to frame my discussion of Islamic feminism. Because mainstream white feminism did not account for the experiences of African American women who faced multiple forms of discrimination, particularly racism, which affected an entire group of people, not only women, black feminists understood feminism as the pursuit for the rights of women, men, and children.

Similarly, I see Islamic feminism as gender justice thought and work that also accounts for children and men, linking their struggles to the fight for women's rights. Imam Mohammed once stated,

          "I'm trying to promote women's lib and at the same time save society."

I interpret this statement as a clear indication of a feminist consciousness that accounts for the advancement of an entire community. Imam Mohammed's comments on women were almost always tied to consideration of the whole society, community and family.  

In a coming post, I present women's voices in relation to Imam Mohammed's gender thought. Drawing upon their everyday experiences as mothers, many women in his community honored and emphasized motherhood beyond the imam's teachings. They developed gender consciousness and activism on their own terms.

Indeed, African American Muslim women have answered Imam Mohammed's call when he said, "We want to hear some hearts, some mother sentiments." Women answered the call to carve out their own ideas, not based on society's standards, not even based on Imam Mohammed's standards, but the divine light in the hearts of women.

Islamic Women, Islamic Feminism

With my new book out, I've been talking about Islamic feminism again. I thought I'd share this interview from 2006 when I was a professor at Spelman College. It was originally posted at http://www.centerfornewwords.org.

Jamillah Karim—where do I start?

Armed with a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Duke University and a lifetime commitment to the faith, Jamillah moved quickly to her current role as an assistant professor of religion at Spelman College. Her teaching, writing, research, and ample public speaking centers around nothing less than Muslims in the U.S., immigration, race, class, religious spaces and communities, and Islamic feminism.

She’s the author of several published articles including “To Be Black, Female, and Muslim: A Candid Conversation about Race in the American Ummah” and “Through Sunni Women’s Eyes: Black Feminism and the Nation of Islam.” As well, Jamillah contributes regularly to Azizah, an American Muslim women’s magazine.

These days, Jamillah [is promoting] a book on how African American and South Asian immigrant Muslims relate to each other, specially focusing on women’s experiences.

Here’s Jamillah:

As an undergrad at Duke University, you studied electrical engineering. How did you come to be a leading Islamic Studies scholar, focusing on gender and race?

Since high school, I have had a passion to teach Islam to the American public. Growing up in an African American Muslim community, I witnessed how Islam has had a positive impact on black communities in general, and especially on women. My mother, and the other women in my community who taught me, shared some of the same struggles as other black women, i.e., taking care of children while going to school and working, some of them divorced, some married. They were strong and God-fearing, and their faith and discipline helped them to achieve great things despite their humble beginnings. My mother, for instance, went back to school when the youngest of her four children was two years old. She’s divorced now, has never remarried because she hasn’t found a man worthy (it’s been 18 years), works as a project manager in an international consulting firm, and loves to do community work. My mother is an amazing role model.

By my senior year in college, I realized that my passion was to teach and write about the amazing community of women that I grew up around. There were graduate students in Islamic Studies at Duke who exposed me to the possibility of graduate studies in Islam, and I thought, ‘I want to be like them.’ So I decided that I would complete my engineering degree but would pursue a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies. With African American Muslims, especially women, as my main area of research, it was inevitable that I would become a scholar of religion, race, and gender.

As a professor at a historically Black women’s college, can you talk about what role such a school plays today, both in the lives of young Black women and in higher education overall? What has your experience been like as a Spelman College professor?

I love Spelman! I’ve always wanted a profession in which I felt that I was making a difference. Spelman has an amazing legacy of producing black female scholars and leaders. My grandmother and aunt, both educators, attended Spelman. Spelman is important because we live in a world that does not take seriously the struggles of black women. We can thrive in many places, like I did at Duke. But we need places committed to the experiences and education of black women. Also, it is vital that black communities produce our own institutions because at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own future. Spelman is a model of the kinds of institutions we need to continue to build.

I could teach anywhere; however, I feel that I truly make a difference at Spelman. Students at any institution do best when they can relate to the professor, when they feel excited and passionate about their courses. I believe that because I am a young, black woman, my students relate to me more than they might relate to other professors teaching Islam. I think that I offer a lot to Spelman; at the same time, Spelman offers me so much, allowing me to be a part of this amazing legacy of educating black women.

Can you talk about the significance of Islam in your own life?

Islam is at the center of my life. It is my pathway to becoming, what one great Muslim scholar, al-Ghazali, described as being god-like. He described this state as follows: it means that “one’s heart and aspiration be taken up with God—great and glorious, that he or she not look towards anything other than God nor pay attention to what is not God, that one neither implore nor fear anyone but God.” This means that whatever I do, including my scholarly work, I begin it with the intention to please and serve God.

You investigate what it means to negotiate Islamic ideals of community (ummah) against America’s race and class divisions. What have you discovered?

Muslims in America are affected by race and class divides in the United States. The majority of converts to Islam are African Americans, and the majority of Muslim immigrants to the United States are of South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) and Arab descent. This means that the American ummah (Muslim community) is made up largely of African Americans and immigrants, although whites and Hispanics are steadily joining the American ummah. Immigrants tend to live in affluent white suburbs, and African American Muslims in black neighborhoods. As a result, African Americans tend to worship in mosques separately from South Asian and Arab immigrants. At the same time, I have found that there are a growing number of sites in which African American and immigrants come together because of their shared Muslim identity. This is happening especially on college campuses where African American and second-generation immigrant Muslims participate in Muslim student organizations and form lifelong friendships. Although Muslims are affected by the racialized residential patterns that I mentioned above (white vs. black neighborhoods), I believe that the Muslim community has a special potential to cross race and class boundaries and emerge as a model of cosmopolitan community.

How do women fit into the historical Muslim tradition?

Women have played a key role in the historical Muslim tradition. The first convert to Islam was a woman, the Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadijah. She supported the Prophet financially and emotionally during the early part of his prophecy when the early Muslim community faced religious persecution. A later wife of the Prophet, ‘Aisha, played a pivotal role in the memorization and transmission of the Prophet’s words and traditions, peace be upon him. Without these traditions, there would be a great omission in Muslim thought and practice.

Muslim women played an integral part of the community and the transmission of sacred knowledge in the early period (the 7th century). However, as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula into Persia, it was embraced by cultures in which women did not enjoy a prominent role, as was the case for many medieval cultures. Women’s contributions to the Muslim tradition became less dominant during this period, again, because of culture and not because of the precedent that the Prophet Muhammad set. Today, Muslim women across the globe are reclaiming the legacy of Muslim women’s contribution in Islam, and some are identifying themselves as Islamic feminists.

How do mosques conflate as both religious and cultural spaces, and how do women of color fit into these spaces?

At least two-thirds of mosques in the United States dominate in one ethnic group, either African American or South Asian. The remaining one-third tends to be a combination of Arab and South Asian Muslims. Mosques, therefore, function as cultural or ethnic spaces. Most women have no problem finding a mosque that fits their cultural or ethnic experience. However, immigrant mosques are more likely to have prayer spaces in which men and women are separated by a wall or curtain. Some women feel uncomfortable in these spaces, especially African American women, but also do first and second-generation immigrant women.

How have African American Muslim women situated themselves within Black feminism? How has feminism been influenced by Muslim women? What is Islamic feminism?

Most African American women do not identify themselves as feminists because of the range of meanings that the term evokes, including the notion that feminism teaches women that they do not need men. Many African American Muslim women are independent, i.e., they are divorced; however, they believe in the ideal of strong families in which men function as leaders and financial supporters. When I write about African American Muslim women, I do situate much of their thought and practice within Black feminism, particularly the dimension of Black feminism that emphasizes feminism as resistance to all forms of injustice, not just gender inequalities. Like other black women, African American Muslim women experience gender discrimination that intersects with discrimination based on race and class. Also, Black feminism’s focus on family and elevating the entire community—women, men, and children—resonates with black Muslim women.

Feminism has been influenced by Muslim women in much the same way that it has been influenced by nonwhite women. Muslim women, like other minority women, challenge narrow definitions of feminism. In particular, Muslim women prove that one can be committed to faith and still act as a feminist. Muslim women broaden feminism.

Islamic feminism is feminist thought and practice derived within an Islamic framework. Muslim women do not have to look beyond their faith tradition to acquire gender consciousness and to fight against gender injustices. The Qur’an and the precedent of the Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him, inspire and inform their feminist practice. This, however, does not mean that other forms of feminism do not influence Muslim women’s feminism. Rather, feminisms intersect to influence Muslim women’s activism.

Islamic feminism also fights against other injustices that affect Muslim women, particularly anti-Muslim racism.

Muslim women are hyper-mediated in the mainstream U.S. news cycle. Particularly, secluded women in hijabs were held up as the epitome of oppression that, in part, supposedly justified war a few years ago. Your work focuses on the gender roles of American Muslims. What’s your response to the political characterization of Muslim women overseas, and how does it compare to Muslim women in our own borders?
I always make it clear that the characterization of Muslim women, especially overseas, is political. The way in which imperial feminists have supported the characterization of Muslim women as backwards to justify the occupation of Muslim lands partly explains why many Muslim women are suspicious of feminism and often choose not to use the label feminist. This is another reason why the qualifier ‘Islamic’ is so important because it distances Muslim women from imperial feminism.

Certainly, there are gender inequalities in Muslim-majority countries; but many scholars have demonstrated that Muslim women have challenged these inequalities through indigenous feminist paradigms. Western feminists can never fully address the concerns and issues of Muslim women, especially those living overseas, because gender activism must always emerge from within the culture it addresses in order for it to be most effective.

Muslim women’s experiences in American borders are certainly different from their experiences abroad. Many immigrant women are claiming their rights for the first time in the United States. However, some of the earliest and most effective Islamic feminist movements have occurred outside the United States. Also, Muslims live across diverse regions of the globe, so we must be careful not to lump Muslim women’s experiences overseas. Muslim women’s experiences in Ghana are drastically different from their experiences in Kuwait. But generally, Muslim women in the United States are highly educated and active in their communities, Muslim and non-Muslim.

In “To Be Black, Female, And Muslim: A Candid Conversation about Race in the American Ummah” you wrote: “While both African Americans and immigrants contribute to these divides, this article shows how immigrant Muslims enjoy a level of privilege and power over African American Muslims.” Can you expand on this?

Muslim immigrants are socialized to respond to African Americans in ways that most immigrants to the United States are—that is, distancing themselves from African Americans, especially their neighborhoods, as part of assimilating into the dominant white culture. In the process, they become complicit in anti-black racism. Even though they don’t enjoy white privilege as whites do, they do acquire some benefits as they seek to claim whiteness. This is the major way that I see immigrant privilege. Also, immigrant Muslims come from multi-generation Muslim families and cultures, and, therefore, tend to imagine themselves as better Muslims over African Americans, who are largely a community of converts and their Muslim-born children. When African Americans have had negative experiences with immigrants, they tend to ascribe this bad behavior to all immigrants even though it does not represent them all.

RESOURCES:
“Challenges Facing American Muslim Women.” By Samer Hathout. Islam for Today.

Azizah Magazine“These women produce a magazine that reflects the experiences and perspectives of Muslim women living in North American society. “

Muslim Women’s League
“…a non-profit Muslim American organization working to implement the values of Islam and thereby reclaim the status of women as free, equal and vital contributors to society.”

“The Feminist Movement and the Muslim Woman.” By Maryam Jameelah. Islam 101.

Women of the Nation makes top reads

I am honored that the authors of Love, InshAllah chose Women of the Nation as one of six books selected on their list #RamadanReads: Changing the Conversation about Muslims, One Book at a Time. The list was created for Beacon Books' "Beacon Broadside."

Announcing My New Book!

Amazon / B&N / NYU Press / NYU Bookstore

Women of the Nation Between Black Protest and Sunni Islam Dawn-Marie Gibson and Jamillah Karim 288 pages | $26.00 Paper "A fascinating and well researched book that expands our knowledge about Islam in the United States. Its analysis of the interactions between the Nation of Islam and mainstream Islam is a model for the scholarship on African American Islam. Anyone who wishes to understand the complex religious identities of contemporary African-American Muslim women should read this book." —Richard Brent Turner, author of Islam in the African-American Experience, Second Edition READ: Our legacy, too: Muslim women and the civil rights movement E-book also available.

With vocal public figures such as Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, and Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam often appears to be a male-centric religious movement, and over 60 years of scholarship have perpetuated that notion. Yet, women have been pivotal in the NOI's development, playing a major role in creating the public image that made it appealing and captivating. Women of the Nation draws on oral histories and interviews with approximately 100 women across several cities to provide an overview of women's historical contributions and their varied experiences of the NOI, including both its continuing community under Farrakhan and its offshoot into Sunni Islam under Imam W.D. Mohammed. The authors examine how women have interpreted and navigated the NOI's gender ideologies and practices, illuminating the experiences of African-American, Latina, and Native American women within the NOI and their changing roles within this patriarchal movement. The book argues that the Nation of Islam experience for women has been characterized by an expression of Islam sensitive to American cultural messages about race and gender, but also by gender and race ideals in the Islamic tradition. It offers the first exhaustive study of women’s experiences in both the NOI and the W.D. Mohammed community. Dawn-Marie Gibson is a Lecturer in Twentieth-Century U.S. History in the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Jamillah Karim is a national and international lecturer in Islam in America, Islam in black America, and women and Islam. Her former academic appointment was as Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Spelman College in 2011.

JET Magazine Didn't Leave Black Muslim Women Out, or the New York Times

Photo in JET, except a head shot. By Sunny Tyrell, a Muslim woman

You would have thought I'd won some money if you had witnessed my excitement upon learning that I was selected to be featured in JET as a young faith leader in the Black community. That was in February. 

It was perfect timing that the article came out in this week's JET with Queen Latifah on the cover. Why? Because just Monday I received this tweet from Arabic Funk:

Where's @IbtihajMuhammad@aminawadud Fatima Jackson@jamillahkarim Intisar Rabb?thrivalroom.com/32-photos-that…@SanaSaeed

The link in the tweet is Thrival Room's (hadn't heard of this site before) "32 Photos That Hope to Change the Way We Look at Muslim American Women." The women profiled range from artists to educators to doctors. 

BUT there was not one African American Muslim woman featured. The women appear to be of Arab and South Asian descent. 

My first thought was that it demonstrated the continued relevance of my first book American Muslim Women, where I argue that African American and South Asian American Muslim women generally occupy separate ethnic spaces, though ummah ideals of unity and other social dynamics occasionally facilitate our crossing our race, class, and gender boundaries. 

My children and the richness of life pulled me away from these thoughts until facebook returned them as African American Muslim women discussed what it meant to be left out again and as efforts were made to create alternative lists. 

Mohammed Schools senior class on NYT, 1993

I want to say out loud that this glaring omission does matter in the sense that it unwittingly reinforces the narrow narrative of American Muslims as immigrant and proves the immense work we need to do to recognize one another across race and ethnic lines in the American ummah. But in another sense, it really doesn't matter that we were left out because our community mothers and fathers, our leaders, our Ana Karims (you have to read my new book to learn about this amazing lady), our Tayyibah Taylors, our Ayesha K. Mustafaas, and our Qur'an Shakirs have been doing this work since we were babies. 

Yes, images and books and lists are powerful and we need all of them to fight Islamophobia, but know that we've been in the trenches shattering the myth of the oppressed, deprived, foreign Muslim woman for some time now. And it's paying off.

We have been featured in our own presses such as the Muslim Journal, but also in mainstream presses such as the New York Times. Just recently, the image of a Black woman first featured on a back cover of Azizah magazine was chosen by the U. S. Department of State for its 2014 publication on American Muslims.

For me, the greater achievement is when our media are recognized by the larger community, as in the case of Azizah Magazine, or when we are included in an important list by a publication that is not Muslim. And not because others are defining us, but because others find us valuable and relevant. 

The JET article in which I am featured is titled "The Chosen Few", and it reads, "With a passion for raising spirits, these new faith leaders inspire truth-seekers to listen for God in the still and the storm." Each faith leader is introduced and quoted with words of wisdom on some aspect of human experience such as love or failure.

Alhamdulillah, I am the Muslim among the five faith leaders featured. Though the feature is small in print, the meaning of this is enormous because it demonstrates American Muslims' ability to offer something beautiful and meaningful from our tradition to a larger human community beyond our faith. The great historian of Islam Marshall Hodgson notes that indeed this ability to offer something relevant to people is indication that a new religious tradition has succeeded in becoming an integral part of society. 

Actor Sumayya Ali, The Washington Times

Hodgson argues that the cultural traditions and dialogues within a place determine Islam’s cultural relevance: only as Islam engaged already existing cultural dialogues could it “become significant for cultural life at large.” To be included in JET's list and other mainstream media in positive, self-defined ways means that we have entered the dialogue and that we are valued.

But of course, our success started with creating our own value, our own images, but even as we created and promoted our own, we have been most effective when the mission is beyond establishing ourselves in this country, and showing compassion and concern for the people who were already here.

Two leaders, whom I highlight in my first book, come to mind most immediately in this light: Dr. Umar Abd-Allah who has encouraged Muslims to make the concerns of non-Muslim Americans their concerns and Imam W. D. Mohammed, whom Dr. Umar holds as a model of this principle.

Speaking to an audience largely second-generation South Asian and Arab Muslim, Dr. Umar stated, "You have to love your people. If you don't love your people, how can you take Islam to your people? And how can you not love your people?"

Imam W. D. Mohammed loved his people.

The Nation of Islam created the Muhammad Speaks newspaper as a medium for Black Muslim expression and images. When Imam W. D. Mohammed became the leader of the Nation after his father's death, he changed the name of the paper from Muhammad Speaks to Bilalian News. Imam Mohammed coined the term Bilalian and offered it as a name for all African Americans, not just Black Muslims.

A 1976 cover of the Bilalian News

As Precious Rasheeda Muhammad and Mahasin Abuwi Aleem have eloquently described, he offered the name to Black Americans in light of our historical search for "a dignified name."  He preferred the term “Bilalian” over “black” and selected it as the name for African Americans: “I think there’s more dignity in identifying with an ancient ancestor than in identifying with skin color. When I say I am a Bilalian, I’m saying that I am a man like Bilal.” He chose Bilal, companion of the Prophet Muhammad emancipated from slavery after embracing Islam, because he was the Muslim ancestor whose story most reflected the narrative of African Americans. 

Ana Karim states, “The Imam had told us Bilal is a prototype of us. . . .His enslavement did not break his will. He held fast to Almighty God. So, the imam said, ‘We are [now] the prototype; we are Bilalians.' The Imam wanted us to be a beacon or harbinger to the future generations to reach for excellence.” The Bilalian News (later changed to Muslim Journal) was an offering, inspired by the Muslim tradition, to all Black Americans.* Ana continues:

Bilalian News stood on the shoulders of Muhammad Speaks in that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said in Muhammad Speaks, “Up you mighty Nation, you can accomplish what you will.” Imam W. D. Mohammed, by naming it Bilalian News, he was saying to our people, “You have the wherewithal within you, God has put all the ingredients in you, to become a great people and become respected by the world. . . .He was reaching out to our people to strive for human excellence.

My recognition as a young faith leader by a Black magazine is simply one of the many fruits of the efforts of Imam W. D. Mohammed and his early followers, including my parents. Because Imam Mohammed loved his people and dedicated his community's newspaper to Black Americans at large, it is no surprise that we are now recognized by one of the most important magazines in the history of the Black freedom struggle.

Indeed, I associate JET with my Granny and Grandpapa, Mrs. Lavada Smith and Dr. Harvey Smith, who always had a copy of the magazine on their coffee table. It was hard for my Granny when my father became a Black Muslim, but over time, as her grandchildren grew with character and intellect, she began to see the beauty of the new life my father had chosen. Her seeing me in JET as a faith leader in the Black community would have sealed her appreciation for Islam, I like to imagine. I am blessed that my 91 year old grandfather has lived to see this day.

May our sons and daughters bring greater light and clarity on a faith meant to benefit all of humanity.

* Bilalian News included a statement of its “policy objectives.” The first five were: “1. Advancement of the moral, and educational development of the entire society. 2. Encourage support for the financial development of economically deprived communities in the society. 3. The presentation to the world of the religious mission of the World Community of Islam in the West, and its community building activities. 4. The presentation of positive Bilalian achievements within and without the United States. 5. The censuring of destructive and negative influences which have traditionally impeded Bilalian development.” “Bilalian News Statement of Policy,” Bilalian News, August 26, 1977, 2.