I think your post is quite interesting. As an African-American Muslim woman I often feel invisible. Definitely in the realm of the mainstream media and to some extent in the cultural/artistic/literary realms representations of African-American Muslim women in both the mainstream and within our own communities is lacking. This does not mean that there is not a thriving intellectual and artistic life-it just seems that-with the exception of the whole Aminah Wadud affair-the life of African-American Muslim women is not controversial enough to be considered fodder for stereotypes or, to some extent, radical enough for progressive (feminist) circles.

I think that Jamerican Muslimah is on to something when she links to the how/where African-American Muslim women have historically come to know and practice their Islam.

In many ways, I think that for many of the African American Muslim women that I know central to their identity as Muslims is-the Qur’an and hadith. They are indeed practicing an engaged surrender where there spiritually is the core of how they think about Islam. There is strong intellectual work and ongoing dialogue about gender, race and sexuality but in my experience it is heavily steeped in the study and practice of Islam.

I think that there are a lot of porous borders that have allowed African Americans to cultivate a unique culture and to form meaningful relationships between masajids and churchs-as well as across ethnic boudaries within Muslim communities.

At the same time-the issues that matter in my own community-incarceration, teenage pregnancy, joblessness, homelessness, drug addiction are issues that seem to not be in vogue. To be blunt these issues seem just too Black to be properly exotic.

Honestly, to answer your initial question “What’s the first image that comes to your mind when you think of a Muslim woman? ” my answer would be ‘an Arab woman in a hijab.’ And I honestly think all this is more our propaganda than it is the Western media’s.

Well, Imam W.D. Muhammad’s movement is predominately African-American (he brought many African-Americans over to traditional Islam from the Nation of Islam.) You will see AA women working at many different levels within the masajid that are under his leadership- from the board to the kitchen to the office. (And I have yet to see a WDM masjid where women are separated from the men by a curtain or partition). However, in the predominately immigrant masajid women are still fighting for a place on the board, to make their voice heard in the masajid and to remove the partitions. I can imagine that is even more difficult for AA women to rise to such a high position given the reception we frequently get coming into predominately immigrant masajid.

I don’t want to suggest that there is absolutely no sexism or other problems in the masajid under Imam Muhammad’s leadership. (After all, Black women have challenged sexism in the NOI and other Black organizations). But the reality is that a predominately AA organization serving the AA community could not survive without the involvement of AA women- it’s always been that way.