Population Numbers
According to Pew, Black American Muslims - which would include Nigerians, Senegalese and other African Muslims - make up ~1% of the total black population of America or what amounts to around 400,000.
I have heard I have always read that there are around 2 million black American Muslims which would be ~5% of the total population of blacks in this country. Thinking about it, I don’t think that number is correct.
The cities with the largest populations of blacks are:
New York, 2.1 million
Chicago, 1.4 million
Detroit 800,000
Philadelphia 700,000
Los Angeles 600,000
Given ~5% the black Muslim populations would be:
NYC,100,000
Chicago, 70,000
Detroit, 40,000
Philly, 35,000
LA, 30,000
The total in those cities would be around 275,000 black Muslims. Even if we TRIPLED those numbers and assume there are another 200,000 black Muslims in Atlanta (which would be ~5% of metro Atlanta’s total population), in order to arrive at 2 million we’d have to assume there are another 1 million black Muslims throughout America in places like New Orleans, Houston, Gary Indiana and other cities where the population of Muslims is not that high - much less with black Muslims. Personally, I don’t think that is the case.
The question is, where’d this number come from??
Filed under: Black American Muslims
There’s a lot of people who don’t necessarily know anything about Islam or practice it, but nonetheless identify with it. I remember a black friend of mine growing up said he was Muslim after he read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and he gave himself a homemade “X” tattoo. There are guys who go into jail and are asked to pick a religion; if they believe in God yet aren’t fond of Christianity they’re likely to check Muslim.
And you have guys who grew up in agnostic households where a cousin, brother, or parent was Muslim — maybe NOI, Moorish Science Temple, even 5%; they’ll likely identify with Islam even if they never prayed in their life. There’s a lot of guys who went through the NOI schools in the 70s and even if they don’t practice what they learned there, they still identify with it on some level. Their God is “Allah;” they believe in the traditional teachings in a loose sense.
That’s probably where the bloated figure comes from.
If there were 2 million African-American Muslims in the U.S, with our education and belief in the Qur’an, there should be a Muslim university, hospital, cable television channel and multiple social service programs throughout our nation.
Whoa!! Five percent of the black population of Philly is Muslim?!? That is false. WAY more than five percent of Philly’s black population is Muslim. I’d like to see the sampling strategy, the population and samples that Pew used to draw their statistical conclusions from. If they simply went around asking black people if they were Muslim, that data would be skewed in many ways. Philly estimates that there are at least 30,000 Muslim children in their public school system, and most of them are BAM’s. There is way more than 35,000 BAM’s in Philly.
Every Friday the Salafi Masaajid are busting out at seams; many people have to pray outside–remember that’s just the Salafi Masaajid. Few of them are immigrants. In Philly It’s IMPOSSIBLE to walk past a group of Black people in the streets and not get Salaams from somebody. Forget the groups like NOI, Moors etc; just look at the Muslims who are just weak and not practicing their Deen and remain of the down-low. In Philly, this group is larger than the ones who are openly Islaamic.
Lastly, many immigrants I speak with say that Philly is the safest place in the U.S. to be openly Muslim, chiefly because of how old Islaam is here, and because there are so many of them. Islaam is embedded in Philly’s culture. The former chief of police is Muslim, two city council members are Muslim, if you go to city hall, there are Muslims everywhere.
I know some brothers who are not from Philly, and who are active in communities and everyone of them jokes, “half of Philly’s black population has to have a Shahada”. Of course this ain’t scientific, so I’d like to actually do a study. I personally believe that at least a third of Philly’s black population is Muslim.
Doing a very quick and dirty calculation, using 2000 census data (Pew was most likely using 2007 estimates), I come up with 34,614,894 “Black or African-American” persons in the U.S. as a whole. Taking 5% of that number, the possible number of Black American Muslims would be 1,730,744, which is not that far off of 2 million. Considering that the U.S. population is estimated to have grown by a little more than 8% since the 2000 census (and assuming that the Black American Muslim population grew proportionally to the U.S. population), that number should be around around 1,870,000 using the 2008 estimate. Considering that everyone likes nice round numbers, 2 million Black Muslims doesn’t seem that far-fetched.
From another perspective, the CAIR “Mosque in America” study, released in 2001, showed that the percentage of regular mosque attendants in the U.S. who were Black was about 30%. If you accept a total U.S. Muslim population of 6 million, then 30% of that number is 1,800,000, which is not that far off from the number I calculated above.
@ JDsg
I am dubious of the number for the above reason. Even if we say there are 275,000 black Muslims in Philly (which would be about a third), it is still hard to make up the numbers in other cities
6 million is an under count. There are about 15 million Muslims in America. if 30% are black, then that would mean about 5 million black Muslims. About 12% of blacks are Muslim
“Muslims”
@ Tariq: Don’t sell the rest of the country short. Your analysis only focused on a few major metropolitan regions. But even in Phoenix, Arizona, when I lived there (and Phoenix has a very tiny black population, less than 4% of the total), the number of black Muslims that I saw at the masajid I attended was quite high; I’d say anywhere between 30% and 50% of the totals. I think you need to factor in the rest of the black population nationwide.
@ JDsg
But in other areas where there are many blacks (Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Memphis, TN) it is rare to find Muslims. The thing is that in places like Phoenix, you’d have to have massive numbers (like 50,000 black Muslims) to make up the shortfalls in other areas where there are blacks.
Tariq -
I am from Los Angeles - we have a population of around 4 million or more not countlng at least 500k in illegal immigrants. The county of Los Angeles has around 12 million. Southern California has around 30 million people. There are more non-practicing muslims than practicing mulsims of course.
There are probably around 2 million black people in Southern California. I would say at least 50K are muslims.
@ Tariq: I understand, and that’s the potential problem with this type of analysis: assumptions become very important and may not be terribly realistic. But based on the assumption you cited (the 5%), the numbers work out reasonably well. If 5% isn’t the correct weighted average to use nationally, then what is? Try to take into account all of the country instead of just the major metropolitan areas.
@ JDsg
5% is not my assumption. That is the number always cited. Pew said it is ~1%. Taking into account the entire country - and not wishful thinking - it is difficult to come up with such a number. Unless one wants to think that Mississippi has around 100,000 black Muslims we don’t know about
Majority black cities like New Orleans, Memphis, TN, and Birmingham, Al have negligible black Muslim populations.
@ Malik
Where’d you hear such a number cited? These numbers are outrageous
Allah hu alam about the number,
But what I DO know is before I left Columbus, Ohio…they were pushing on 100,000 Somalis alone. (not sure if they count the immigrant Somalis as part of AA in this census, or west africans only).
Before we say Pew is right or wrong we have to know what was their method.
On a comment over at TalkIslam on this ongoing discussion, I’ve pointed out that both the six million and the 1/3 or 2 million numbers are basically numbers chosen for political reasons. I share the skepticism of some other commenters for the Pew numbers. But in light of the enormous difference with the Pew numbers, I think we should just admit at the least that we have no idea how many Muslims there are and stop spouting exaggerated figures in a misguided attempt at political influence or band wagon jumping da’wah.
As I point out over there, even Dr. Jackson falls into this trap in “Islam and the Blackamerican” when he claims that (numerically) “the relationship between Blackamerican Muslims and the Blackamerican community at large is rapidly approaching the relationship between Blackamericans and the rest of America.” (p.23) Based on the Pew numbers this just seems to be way off as Blackamericans are 13 percent of U.S. population and the data doesn’t seem to back up the claim that anywhere near 13 percent of Blackamericans are Muslim.
We should also figure out why if the numbers are so much lower than our “leaders” like to say, Why does it seem to those of us who live and work in the Black community that Islam is more of a presence than less than 1 percent would indicate? Is it because Muslims are unusually vocal or influential in the community? Is it because some of us are misguided by a few exceptional communities like Philly or Chicago or New York which are not indicative of the country as a whole? Or do we really know that Muslims are not that big of a factor but because we are Muslims we just tend to be around Muslims a lot and so we have a distorted view?
For example, because there are Blackamerican Muslims who are famous in politics, in hip hop, and in sports we may start thinking they are big part of the community but even there what percentage of NBA players are Muslim, what percentage of Black politicians are Muslim — they are still pretty low if we actually stopped to calculate it (Now hip hop might be an exception, but even there we don’t often think that the vast majority of hip hop artists are Christian but we as Muslims focus a lot on the few who are Muslim as one would expect from a minority community)
@ Abu Noor
I agree with you. The 6 Million number seems to be political. I have been hearing that number for 15 years. Yet, the number of Muslims (according to some polls) during the 1990s doubled and the number of Muslims quoted is still 6 million. Why not 12 or 15 million?
This was my point on Talk Islam and here. Let’s be for real
Tariq,
I think this is also true for other issues where it may be hard to get data….that we develop narratives based on a combination of perception, individual experience, and political interests and we would benefit if we want to seriously attack problems rather than just keep talking about them from getting accurate numbers.
I know you have a theory about the way the community changed after 9/11. We have to find ways to figure out if this is really true..were there really more converts in a certain golden age, what exactly happened to them?
Also, the liquor store issue. The problem of Muslims owning liquor stores is a real issue and every once in a while it surfaces as if it is a ‘new’ issue. It is not at all new and I’ve been hearing about and dealing with this issue since I’ve been Muslim. I actually think the situation has changed a little since 1990 with in Chicago at least there being a trend for some away from liquor stores toward owning dollar stores or fast food restaurants …now there are still issues regarding community relations but the issues are changing. IMAN has been working slowly over the last couple of years on a pilot project to address these issues and the first phase was to actually collect real data on how many Muslim owned businesses there are in the inner city, what type of businesses are they, and to do surveys of how business owners view the community and how they run their businesses and how community residents view the business owners and how they run their business. I know education and consciousness raising is always an important part of community organizing but this is what I look forward to, less anecdotal mentioning of problems in the community and more serious attempts to really understand what is going on, to develop real solutions and begin solving the problem.
I know this is what you’re about, I know this is what orgs like MANA and IMAN want to be about. InshAllaah let’s continue to strive hard on that road.
I agree with a lot of what Abu Noor has said and pointed out a lot of this on my post on the topic. One thing, as tariq stated, we must keep in mind is that there are very large BAM populations in places such as NYC, NJ and Philly; but in other places with large AA populations there are extremely few BAM ( in St. Louis,a s an example there are about 500,000 African-Americans in the metro area and maybe 200 BAM at jumma on any given Friday)
The other issue of course is the fact that when trying to come to a precise figure regarding the Muslim population there are those who have an interested in an undercount and others who have an interested in exaggerating the number.
Frankly what does it matter if we are 1% or 11% ? What is important is our positive influence on the American society. Our numbers could be great but we could be as Muhammed The Prophet (PBUH) said like “the rubbish of flood water”.
I will never to profess to being an expert statistician, but I’m always weary of those numbers.I think about my home town, Atlanta. I wonder how some of those same guys approach their ways for finding these results. No two cities are alike and they cannot be approached in the same manner.
For example(s), the thing that irks me when it comes to national reporters is how they classify it’s’burbs For example,the recent incident that took place with the young Muslim woman In Douglasville, Georgia. National reporters said that it took place in Atlanta, while the local reporters said it was in that city,which is accurate. They( reporters) rarely will say, it’s a suburb, but it is referred to as ATL and that is not the case.
In Georgia, as a whole, there are 159 counties , with at least 28 of them being part of the metro ATL. with many of their populations( general), ranging over 150,000-700,000 and with several of them having high Black populations in them, and fairly high Muslim population( though I’m not sure the of the numbers.) with 36-37 masjids in the state.I don’t know how they concluded their findings, but just in case they may have did the national reporters style of doing it then they could be leaving out some valuable information from it .
I agree, with high numbers indicated in those states/cities, I cannot see how it can come to one percent.
Salaam alaikum,
I’m always skeptical about the “scientific” claims in social sciences, but I think that some of our estimates are ridiculously high. But still, I think 1% of the Black population is rather low. According to the Pew study’s methodology section, the total sample size was 35,556. They collected surveys on 116 Muslims, there is a 10.5 percent point margin of error, by far the largest margin of error in any of the population groups. But that doesn’t account for the large numbers that Muslims, including myself, often cite.
Maybe our expanded numbers come from counting all the Black folks with Muslim sounding names, like these two clowns named Kamal and Jamal: http://reality_bytes.today.com/files/2008/10/real-chance4.jpg
Or, maybe 5 percenters, psuedo-Muslims, and apostates are not taken out of bloated estimates.
Or by double counting some of us who never changed our names legally. There was some confusion at Stanford when people from my local Muslim community would say, “There’s a sister named Aziza in the history department” and then a sister from Stanford would say, “Oh yeah, and there’s a sister named Margari.” I’d have to clear up the mess by explaining that my Muslim friends call me Aziza and it was just to much work forcing all my professors to call me by my Muslim name. But they’d still be disappointed that I slashed the number.
The reality is, we don’t know how many Muslims are in this country. So we should be more guarded about our claims.
I also think that there is an over estimation of Black American Muslim, yet this is due to number of factors.
1) The influence of “Muslim” culture on Black Americans for exceeds the actual number of BAMs. Due to cultural awakenings in the early 70s and again in the early 90s, Islam became haven for Blacks looking for counter-culture values. Being “Muslim” became equated with accepting an African heritage and fighting “the power” or “da man” or whatever. So people would claim to be Muslim (ie truly following religion of our forefathers) by simply stop eating pork and taking a new name, learned “eye sa lamb ah laykum” and that was it. There was no making salaat nor going to the Masjid because that was “too” much and Allah “knows their heart”
2) another point that can not over looked is the fitna caused by government endorsed foreign influences which caused instability of communities. so the father stops going to Masjid “a” never is accepted at Masjid “b” so the children don’t go anywhere. Then the grand-children have names like nautica or porche.
or a sister accepts Islam to be with a brother, he becomes influenced by a skewed view of Islam, she leaves after she’s had enough but not before she’s had 8 children, who then have about 20 grand children most with “Muslim” names and none making salaat, but still believe God is called Allah.
The transitioning of Islam from one generation to the next has been difficult for BAMs. I know of only two BAM Masjids one in cleveland and one in Philly where the Imam in his 50s is a second generation Muslim and just from my personal observation the reverts seem to be the most active in every BAM community in general.
The BAM population will always be skewed until we can prevent or at least stem the tide of second and third generation none active BAMs (yes I know them leaving salaat is grounds to call them appostates) offsetting the number of new revert BAMs, the “actual” number of BAMs will always be lower than the “precieved” number BAMs.
Salaam alaikum Abu Usamah al-Aswad,
As a convert, I know of only a few second generation Muslims born in the 70s and 80s. The few folks I know had parents who were either in the Nation or were part of the W.D. movement, but their parents stopped practicing some time during the shift from NOI to sunni Islam or they stopped practicing as the W.D. movement became decentralized. A lot of the kids just slipped through the cracks. One good example is Umm Adam, over in KSA. There’s also Kameelah over at Kameelah writes. And I know a family where only two brothers picked up the Deen in a family of 6. I don’t know what the other siblings identify as, but I suppose they might check the Muslim box.
We haven’t had any studies done, but I’d like to compare the numbers of second generation American Muslims who practice to second generation immigrants who practice. Many of my friends who are children of secular Arabs and Pakistanis became religious in college. A number of them inspired their parents to become more religious. On the other hand, predominantly Black masajid seem to be losing their teenagers to the streets.
The reality is, Black American Muslims seem to have a difficult time reproducing themselves. Wasn’t this the same situation as during slavery times when there was a significant number of African slaves who were Muslim, but they failed to create cohesive communities that allowed for the reproduction of Muslim culture? I’m not trying to paint a dim picture. But I think the numbers point to some deeper underlying issues that we need to address.
Sis Azizah, you should really go visit Atlanta. Thousands of second and third generation active AA Muslims there.
hi,
Nice post, enjoyed reading it, check mine if you get time. Thanks,