Lifting the Veil on ‘Black’ Islam
Posted on June 12th, 2008 by Tariq Nelson
An article by Jeff Deeny - who apparently misunderstood a few things - about the Germantown Muslim Community in Philadelphia in the aftermath of the Howard Cain burial controversy (Thanks to Br. Tunji)
Excerpts are below the fold with a few of my comments
Back at the beginning of April I spent an afternoon hanging out with Saddiq Abdul Jabbar and Tunji Turner from the Germantown Masjid which, according to the Daily News, has become embroiled in an international controversy over its decision to not provide a burial service for a Muslim man killed during the botched bank robbery that left police officer Stephen Liczbinski dead. The City Paper was doing a three part series called
Filed under: Black American Muslims
We need a documentary on this community.
There was a documentary in the UK on the Salafis which was good, it looked at the community at Brixton Masjid (Masjid Ibn Taymiyyah): http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AWzm4o9ChhE&feature=related
salaams tariq,
this is exactly the kind of article that needs to be read not only by non-muslims but also by the broader american muslim community. I am posting a link to your entry here at talk islam, but I beseech you to consider using Talk Islam more heavily to draw attention to these matters, especially when the black muslim community receives positive media coverage.
Like it or not, the way that most of your brothers in Islam who are not black get their information about the black muslim community is indeed through the media filter, which is akin to people in the same room chatting via telephone. Yours is an important voice for intra-muslim communication and I am keen to see it amplified. Thats the purpose of Talk Islam .
AsSalaamu Alaikum,
Very interesting article. This again must be watched closely. Alhamdulillah for this type of press. Alhamdulillah.
Aziz, you make a good point, we must begin to dispell stereotypes about cultures within our Islamic community in order to move forward and inshaAllah this is a step in the right direction inshaAllah.